Abstract
The gender pay gap, as one of the concerns of gender equality policies, currently an important worldwide HR issue (Bender and Pigeyre, 2016) has been declining slowly over time, falling by approximately a quarter over the last decade among full-time employees and all employees in the UK(ONS, 2023). Many companies are seeking to reduce it, for reasons of fairness and equity (Kim et al., 2019) and performance (Kossek and Buzzanell, 2018). Closing the gender pay gap may benefit women, and may also bolster business performance, strengthening the global economy (Noland, Moran, and Kotschwar, 2016). From April 2017, under The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, private and public organisations in the UK with more than 250 employees are required to report on their gender pay gaps. The underlying assumption is that publishing and monitoring pay gaps will help employers understand the causes for any gap, consider the steps they should follow and monitor how effective their actions are in reducing it.). Since the mandatory reports have been introduced the GPG has been slowly decreased too. Among all employees, the gender pay gap decreased to 14.3% in 2023, from 14.4% in 2022, and is still below the levels seen in 2019 (17.4%) (ONS, 2023).