“Women paid more” hospitality stats don’t apply to restaurants or pubs

That’s according to research released today, which found that across hospitality, women are paid two pence more per hour on average than men (£7.84 versus £7.82).

The hotel and QSR sectors were shown to pay more (women £8.66 vs men £8.29; and women £8.45 vs men £8.29 respectively) to women than men, pushing up the overall average.  

However, this was not true for the restaurant sector, in which men received £7.85 and women £7.50, or the pub sector, which paid men £7.73 and women £7.64 on average.

Similarly, the 2p boost for women may in fact point to their increased likelihood to do lower-paid roles and rely disproportionately on tips.

Men, in contrast, are more likely to do back-of-house roles with less access to tips, but higher and more consistent pay overall.

“The statistics clearly show that the gender pay gap, which favoured men by 21p in 2014, has not only disappeared, but now slightly favours women,” says Mike Shipley, analytics and insight solutions director at Fourth.

“This said, there are we think some key reasons for what we see across the main segments of hospitality. Our data shows that women in the restaurant sector are far more likely to work in front-of-house roles, which tend to pay slightly lower hourly rates as there is typically an opportunity to earn tips in addition to wages.

“Whereas back-of-house roles, which tend to be carried out more by men, do not offer the same tips potential, and therefore hourly rates tend to be higher. We believe this is what is driving this result and should be factored in.”