Irwin Mitchell: gender pay gap shrinks

Despite reports that the government has postponed gender pay gap reporting for 2019/20 due to the coronavirus outbreak, UK firm Irwin Mitchell shared its recent data which shows that its gender pay gap has shrunk.

The firm’s reporting highlights that women are still paid an average 10.3% less than male staff, compared to 12.8% last year. As well as the gender pay gap reduction, the firm also reported a reduction in its gender bonus gap from 31.9% in 2018 to 25.7% in 2019.

Chief people officer and diversity board member Susan Berlevy stated: “Although our results are again positive, and show an overall improvement from last year, we recognise that there’s still work to do and remain committed to improvement. Part of this includes the hard work taking place to ensure our people policies are developed to support the improvement in gender balance across the organisation.

“We have an ambition to be a leading responsible business, and we demonstrate that by championing fairness, diversity, equality and inclusion.”

According to the Law Gazette, women make up 70% of Irwin Mitchell staff overall, 65% of the firm’s regional managers and 42% partners. On top of this, 2020 saw 63% of associate and senior associate promotions at the firm go to women, while data from 2019 shows that 77% of promotions to partner level were women.

In 2019 magic circle firm Linklaters announced an overall gender pay gap of 62.6%, while Allen & Overy revealed theirs to be 61.5%. In addition, the combined gender pay gap for partners and employees at White & Case shrunk 64.8% in 2018 to 62.2% in 2019.