Contradictions of transparency: the changing architecture of gendered pay inequity in Britain’s finance sector

This thesis provides a comprehensive assessment of legal and organisational interventions to reduce the gender pay gap within banking in the UK. The moral, legal and financial imperatives for greater diversity are well understood, but despite the need for change, progress in addressing gender pay inequity is slow and requires further investigation (Healy and Ahamed, 2019). The theoretical approach pursued focuses on four contested explanations of the problem: institutional; organisational; economic; and sociological (Rubery and Grimshaw, 2015). The fundamental interrelationship of these thematic perspectives helps construct an architecture of inequality model, via a multilevel analysis that is embedded within the broader employment systems literature (O'Reilly, 1996; O'Reilly, 2006; Rubery and Hebson, 2018; Gallie, 2007b; Rubery, 2003).

An architecture of inequality refers to three levels of analysis. At the macro level, the new and largely untapped gender pay reporting regulatory (GPRR) data is evaluated, alongside an historic analysis of Britain’s progressively broadened legal arrangements. At the meso level, the variability in how these requirements are applied, interpreted and built upon in organisations is examined from a combination of published company accounts, trade union and employee interviews. Finally, at the micro level, individual experiences of the laws, policies, economic rational choices and sociological norms were obtained from qualitative interviews with women working for a range of finance organisations operating in the UK.

The increased transparency offered by the GPRR undoubtedly gives greater exposure to pay inequities. However, examination reveals how a broader and embedded lack of transparency, alongside the preference for light-touch governance, continually acts to countenance change efforts (Conley and Torbus, 2019). The foundational architectural element of sociologically constructed norms and values inform and impede the legal and organisational approaches pursued, inhibiting change. This thesis argues that the existing approach to transparency is merely a perfunctory legal process, around which the invisibility of the systemic elements of the architecture of inequality persist