Sponsored by Bidvine:
New research by online services marketplace Bidvine.com has found that the gender pay gap is virtually non-existent among freelancers and the self-employed on its platform. The Bidvine.com website allows users to post jobs and search for local services, allowing local professionals to bid for the opportunities. Through its research, the team found that women working in sectors such as plumbing, photography, and personal training were earning virtually the same as their male counterparts.
Bidvine.com used internal data gathered over the last 12 months as well as asking 150 men and 150 women from each top performing sector on the website to state their hourly rate for the services they provide. The research revealed that there was little to no difference in wages for freelancers and self-employed workers when it came to gender. The results are shown below:
- Personal training / nutritionists (Men – $50 / Women – $46 per hour)
- Wedding photography (Men – $900 / Women – $945 per wedding)
- Domestic and business cleaning (Men – $15 / Women – $16 per hour)
- Plumbing services (Men – $100 / Women – $97 per hour)
- Music teachers (Men – $38 / Women – $38 per hour)
- Gardening and landscaping (Men – $29 / Women – $26 per hour)
- Language teachers (Men – $35 / Women – $39 per hour)
- Electricians (Men – $97 / Women – $95 per hour)
- Singing teachers (Men – $42 / Women – $48 per hour)
These results look good for gender equality within the freelance and self-employed sectors, but the wider picture still looks uncertain. In fact, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics has the average pay gap at 14.1% across all industries — a figure that has been unchanged since 2014.
Russ Morgan, co-founder of Bidvine.com talked about the findings saying, “It’s great to see that — at least among the skilled professionals on our site — the gender pay gap is virtually extinct. The explosion of freelance and self-employed workers has seen a shift in how people value the work they do and what their customers see as value for money for a job well-done.”
