However, under these positive headlines we see that there are occupational, age and ethnic sub-minority variations which are not so positive. For example:

• In the over 60 age group, the gender pay gap has widened over the past 10 years after narrowing between 1997 and 2004. (UK)
• The pay gap between men and women working in London has barely changed in over two decades
• Within ethnic minorities, Asians tend to achieve income parity or have even higher incomes than white workers, while those of African and Caribbean descent have much lower incomes.
  • London has the largest pay gap, with ethnic minority groups earning 21.7% less than white employees on average
• In December 2018, the World Economic Forum reported that it will take 202 years to completely close the gender pay gap globally "Our education system continues to influence gender norms that lead girls into lower paying jobs that are less valued." (We might put a different, feminist spin on that, viz: "Our economic system continues to undervalue traditionally female jobs.")
• There are many types of diversity which are not measured including learning differences, culture, life experience, experience of life-threatening situations and chronic disease.

The main EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) recommendations for closing the pay gap address differences in subject and career choices, educational attainment and access to apprenticeships and include:

• Improve work opportunities for everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, by investing in sector-specific training and regional enterprise
• Encourage men and women to share childcare responsibilities by making paternity leave a more effective incentive and improving access to childcare
• Increase diversity at all levels and in all sectors by encouraging employers to tackle bias in recruitment, promotion and pay, and introducing a new national target for senior and executive management positions
• Report on progress towards reducing pay gaps by extending reporting to ethnicity and disability and collecting annual statistics.

However, they stop short of addressing the fact that higher monetary value is placed on traditionally white, male occupations and there is an implicit assumption that gaps will be closed through having those at the bottom receive (and therefore consume) more, rather than those at the top taking/consuming less.