Women working for the Church of England are paid on average over £10,000 a year less than men, the CofE acknowledged yesterday.
It said that the average pay of a woman working in the Church’s managing institutions is £32,711 a year, compared to an average of £43,316 for men employed in the same offices.
The figures, which include the pay of officials and staff working directly for the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, show that the central organisations of the Church operate a gender pay gap of 24 per cent.
Archbishop Justin Welby‘s targets have included the gender pay gap, which he has condemned as unjust.
The Church of England acknowledged yesterday that women working for the Church of England are paid on average over £10,000 a year less than men
In September, launching an economic report by a left-leaning think tank, Archbishop Welby said: ‘The large gender and race pay gaps which characterise our economy, and the discrimination and exclusion widely experienced by women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and others, are evidence of structural injustice.’
Yesterday’s CofE figures show that the gender pay gap in the Church’s major institutions, assessed in April, is nearly three times greater than the 8.6 per cent gap found in the economy as a whole.
The Church breakdown applies to staff employed in its national institutions, and not to clergy or workers employed locally by dioceses.
The organisations involved include the CofE’s Cabinet, the Archbishops’ Council; the offices of Archbishop Welby at Lambeth Palace; those of the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend John Sentamu; and the Church’s financial wing, the Church Commissioners.
Three more minor bodies were also included in the assessment of the pay of 491 staff.
The figures show that the central organisations of the Church operate a gender pay gap of 24 per cent
Average pay – counted as the median, the level midway between the highest and lowest-paid workers – showed a gender gap of £10,605 a year, a level which means women are paid just over three quarters of salaries paid to men.
Church officials said the gap had narrowed since last year.
Although last year the CofE said the median gender pay gap in its national institutions was 41 per cent, officials said yesterday that this had been a mistake and last year’s median gap was in fact 28 per cent.
They added that the gap is wide because many women working for the CofE are in lower-paid jobs. ‘We continue to see a large proportion of females in the lower and mid-lower quartiles compared to the UK average, this subsequently impacts on the average pay for females being lower than males,’ a spokesman said.
Carole Harden, Interim Director of People and Change for the National Church Institutions said: ‘This year’s results are encouraging as we continue to review pay structures, addressing any imbalances and barriers to females and opportunities for advancement within the NCIs.
‘We are committed to improving this further as we focus on reducing the difference in pay between men and women in more highly paid roles, and improving the ratio of men to women in the most senior and most junior roles.’
Archbishop Welby has suffered a series of reverses to his attempts to criticise banks, companies and economic practices which pursue exploitative policies.
In September he accused Amazon of failing to pay its workers a living wage and ‘leaching’ off the taxpayer by paying minimal taxes.
However shortly afterwards the Daily Mail disclosed that the Church holds shares in Amazon thought to be worth £25 million.
Five years ago the Archbishop told payday lender Wonga that ‘we’re trying to compete you out of existence’, and pledged that the CofE would use its 16,000 churches to give a foothold to consumer-friendly credit unions.
However, earlier this month new figures showed that fewer than one in ten churches have any involvement at all in social projects concerning money, or even try to offer advice on how to deal with debt.