Gender Pay Gaps In Events Jobs, What You Need To Know.

The gender pay gap is real. We may not want to talk about it, we may try to deny it, we may bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it doesn’t exist. Those of us who own our own businesses may even put specific policies in place to prevent it, but there’s ample evidence to show that in a wide range of industries both in the UK and beyond, the gender pay gap is here to stay… unless we do something about it.

The scope of the problem is not to be underestimated. The World Economic Forum itself estimates that it will take over 200 years for the gender pay gap to close completely, around the world across all industries. While the 2 biggest offenders in terms of gender pay gaps in the UK are the construction industry and the financial services and insurance sector, the Events Management industry has a black eye of its very own. Let’s take a look at gender pay gaps in events jobs, what you need to know...

An unsettling disparity

There’s something rotten at the core of events. As Leeds Beckett University’s Rhodri Thomas asserts;

“Women comprise about 75% of the events workforce but there is a promotion and pay gap that favours men (e.g. Carter, 2015). This is not unique to events. It is an issue which has vexed many across several sectors.”

Here we can see that the events management industry differs from construction, and to a lesser extent the financial services industry in a fundamental way. In these industries, a huge cause of the pay disparity lies in an inability to attract women to the industry in the first place as well as retaining them so that they wish to remain in the industry throughout their careers. The majority of those working in the events industry are women, yet the pay gap persists. Why?

The problem is not confined to the UK either. Across the pond, a 2017 survey revealed that female respondents earned 22% less than their male counterparts.

The causes of the gender pay gap

When it comes to addressing the causes of the gender pay gap in the events industry, there are those within the industry who argue that the role of event planner is, by default, underpaid