It’s Aviva’s turn to unveil its gender pay gap in the UK.
Late last year the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) disclosed its gender pay information – mean hourly rate gap of 28%; median, 18% – while encouraging insurers to start doing the same ahead of the April deadline. Yesterday we told you about
Zurich’s, which stood at 27% for both mean and median.
Now British insurance giant Aviva has released its UK gender pay gap report, posting a mean gender pay gap of 28.5% and a mean gender bonus gap of 57.2%. It employs about 16,000 people in the UK.
Explaining why a gender pay gap exists in the company, Aviva cited the unequal distribution of men and women throughout its business as the main reason. Specifically, the insurer has a higher proportion of women than men in more junior roles, as well as fewer women than men in senior and management roles.
As for its gender bonus gap, which is significantly higher compared to the gender pay gap, a couple of factors were identified. One is the fact that there are more men in sales and distribution roles, which Aviva said typically attract higher bonus opportunities. Similarly, there’s a larger overall bonus opportunity in the firm’s most senior roles, which are occupied by more men than women.
“As a woman in financial services, I’m not proud of our gender pay gap figures,” said Aviva group chief risk officer Angela Darlington. “We’re already doing a lot to increase the number of women in our senior roles but it’s clearly not enough.”
The steps being taken to close the gap include expanding Aviva’s women in leadership programme and implementing equal parental leave for male and female employees. “High potential” women are also recruited and developed through the company’s global graduate programme.
All UK firms with a workforce of at least 250 people are required to publish gender pay information.
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