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Female company directors in Britain earn one-fifth less than their male colleagues for doing the same job despite working longer hours, research shows.
The inequities of corporate life, exposed in a survey by the Institute of Directors, lie behind an initiative from the London Business School that seeks to promote women in the workplace.
Backed by Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, the new LBS Centre for Women in Business has called on more than 100 of the world's biggest companies to draw up a blueprint to get more women into top jobs.
Senior executives from companies including BP, BskyB and BT attended the launch.
Laura Tyson, LBS's dean, said companies "struggled to identify, recruit and retain" half of their potential talent pool. While 50 per cent of graduates were female, this dropped to 30 per cent of middle management and 15 per cent of senior management.
The institute's survey showed that female executives earned on average £60,000 ($170,700) a year, against their male counterparts' £74,028.
Overall, the pay gap between women and men had narrowed to 19 per cent from 25 per cent last year, but women worked longer for their cash, the survey of almost 4000 jobs from 1000 organisations showed.
Female managing directors in medium and large companies worked 51.25 hours a week, compared with a man's 50-hour week, while those in larger companies work a 57-hour week on average, two hours more than their male colleagues.
Miles Templeman, the IOD's director general, said the decrease was "hardly grounds for celebration. Even those who break through the glass ceiling and reach board level will find there is another roof over their heads".
- INDEPENDENT
