Filling the GAP in HR services: Women are more expensive than men
It’s an accepted “fact” of business life – women are more expensive to employ than men.
But is it true?
Few people like to go on the record about it – largely through fear of getting a knock on the door from politically correct vigilantes.
Employers and employment bodies have traditionally been shy of undertaking any kind of meaningful study into the costs of women in the workplace.
Despite this, there appears to be a real fear that employing women can cost a business dearly.
A survey of HR professionals by Croner Consulting suggests that some four fifths of employers instinctively think twice about employing women of ‘childbearing age’ – which is basically all women nowadays, as the current UK oldest new mother is 66!
That means the assumption that women are more expensive to employ could be affecting 10.9 million women throughout the UK.
Even removing the subjective from the discussion, leaving out the whys and the wherefores, answering the simple question ‘are women more expensive to employ than men?’ takes diplomacy to entirely new levels.
So how does the expense theory stand up to scrutiny? Here are some of the most common assumptions (and the truth behind them)”
