Male PRs twice as likely to earn £50k+
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Women make up 65% of the UK’s public relations profession according to the CIPR’s Annual State of the PR Profession Survey released this week. Yet men are more than twice as likely to earn a salary of more than £50,000, begging the question: “What gives?!”
The survey of almost 2,000 CIPR members was carried out by ComRes. It showed that men are more likely to hold a senior management or director positions than female practitioners, with 18% of male practitioners at director level, 11% at senior management and 11% at managing director compared to 9%, 7% and 9% of female practitioners respectively.
Men are almost twice as likely to be earning a salary in excess of £50,000 than women. The results also showed that male practitioners are more likely (30%) to be a member of their organisation’s board compared to their female colleagues (18%).
For a profession that has a large and vibrant community of female practitioners, I can’t help but wonder why women’s careers (and pay packets! ) are lagging so dramatically behind those of their male colleagues.
The ComRes report offers no explanation but states: “We need to urgently understand (sic) how this compares to other professions, the reasons for any disparities and how the profession should tackle it.”
I suspect the trend is driven by the age old challenges of juggling a career with motherhood. Women are settling for less success in the workplace so they focus on raising their families. But men have families too, so why the disparity?
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Hmm interesting this, I don’t know why this is but I would hazard a guess it is because many females decide to start a family and leave the profession for a few years. In my experience women often make much better PR people than men as they are more organised although there are exceptions to the rules obviously.
[...] Male PRs twice as likely to earn £50k+ | Sherrilynne Starkie [...]
Chris, I fear you are right. But why don’t men make sacrifices at work to focus on family? Why is that always down to us women?
I remember similar shock and surprise when a study for the CIPR in 2005 showed a clear gender pay gap in PR. How could this be?
I suspect there may be two reasons (in addition to the biological one you mention):
1. Could it be that men tend to choose higher-paying specialisms (corporate, financial, technology) while women tend to choose generalist consumer PR roles (or poorer-paid roles in the public or not-for-profit sectors)?
2. Could there be some male boastfulness going on? It’s possible that some men will declare a higher salary than they earn in a survey; perhaps some women even do the opposite.
I have not seen the data but from what has been reported, it would seem that there are more old men than old women in PR by a very large margin.
I suspect that the salary issues is much more about years of experience than some imaginary glass ceiling.
The same argument applies to the number of female board directors in the profession.
One of the disadvantages of reporting research is that there is a temptation to be sensationalist. I suspect that this is the case for the so called public relations person who wrote the press release about this research.
Alternatively, one may imagine that the Institute’s press release writer has not done the ethics course.
Perhaps one could ask for clarification from the Institute before war breaks out.
Richard you could have a point about boastfulness. David, the news release did have one split infinitive, which makes you wonder about who was writing it. But, sadly, I do believe the data. Men deffo make more. The question is why we women put up with it.
[...] 3. Male PRs twice as likely to earn £50+: Women make up 65% of the UK’s public relations profession according to the CIPR’s Annual State of the PR Profession Survey released this week. Yet men are more than twice as likely to earn a salary of more than £50,000, begging the question: “What gives?!” [...]
[...] Male PRs twice as likely to earn £50k+ [...]
[...] Make PRs twice as likely to earn £50+ [...]
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