Scotland slips down rankings for women's economic empowerment

Scotland has lost its crown as the UK’s league leader for working women, suffering declines in almost all key metrics.

PwC's Women in Work study found that Scotland's pay gap had narrowed but all other key indicators declined. Picture: Getty Images

While all other parts of the UK improved their overall scores, Scotland has dropped to fourth place in this year’s PwC Women in Work Index, which analyses female economic empowerment.

The fall comes after Scotland led the UK rankings for two consecutive years.

The index, which comes ahead of International Women’s Day this weekend, found a 2 per cent reduction in Scotland’s total, as the country saw marginal declines on all indicators except the gender pay gap.

Scotland’s female unemployment increased from 3.6 per cent in 2017 to 4 per cent in 2018, the most recent year for which figures have been made available, with 52,000 unemployed women.

However, PwC said this rise was in line with wider unemployment figures and attributed Scotland’s slip down the rankings to the overperformance of English regions and other devolved nations, which enjoyed rapid improvements over the same period.

The south-west of England took the top spot, having improved on all five indicators measured for the index, with Northern Ireland and Wales also pushing ahead to take second and third places, respectively.

Scottish Government figures for 2018 show that part-time employment accounted for 42.5 per cent of all women’s employment, compared with 13.1 per cent of all men’s.

The one indicator where Scotland continued to improve was in the gender pay gap, closing the deficit by 1 per cent to 15 per cent in 2018, ahead of the 18 per cent UK average.

PwC praised plans to encourage more women to consider careers in sectors such as in technology, which it said have the potential to further reduce the gender pay gap given the industry’s high earnings potential.

Claire Reid, regional leader for PwC in Scotland, said: “We must remember that [Scotland has] set the standard in gender equality in the workplace and we are now seeing other parts of the UK respond to that. It is hugely encouraging to see Scotland’s gender pay gap improve, moving us up to third place in this important indicator.

“Overall, what this year’s index shows us is that the work cannot stop, and in fact must gather pace.

“To improve in future years, there must also be increased support for flexible working for all genders to reduce the balance of caring responsibilities being placed on women, along with childcare and social care solutions that enable women to participate more in the workforce.”

Meanwhile, a separate study by Purbeck Insurance Services, which specialises in small business policies, found that nearly half (46 per cent) of female founders “never switch off from work”, even while on holiday. This compared to 38 per cent of men surveyed.