Proportions Paid below £3.50 per hour in Selected Occupations

Occupation	Proportion	Raw difference	Adjusted difference
Hairdressers, barbers	.587	.523	.346
Waiters, waitresses	.562	.498	.336
Bar staff	.488	.425	.255
Cleaners, domestics	.487	.423	.309
Sewing machinists, menders, darners etc	.476	.413	.322
Kitchen porters, hands	.435	.371	.247
Counterhands, catering assistants	.402	.339	.257
Childcare and related occupations n.e.c.	.374	.311	.167
Care assistants and attendants (health)	.320	.257	.169
Retail cash desk and check-out operators	.314	.250	.148
Sales assistants	.309	.245	.117
Security guards and related occupations	.243	.179	.166
Other occupations	.064	-	-
All occupations	.109	-	-

Stewart (1999) from LFS Spring 1997. Sample size is 8288 of which 1,237 individuals are in the 12 lowest paid occupations.

Notes: Table can be interpreted as follows using bar staff as an example:
1. 48.8% of bar staff earn under £3.50 an hour (spring 1997), the corresponding figure for all occupations is 10.9% and for occupations other than those in the table is 6.4%.
2. The raw differential in the probability of being paid under £3.50 for bar staff compared with other occupations is 42.5%.
3. But some of the raw differential is attributable to the various individual and workplace characteristics associated with the different occupations. The controls are: gender; age; age completed full-time education; highest qualification equivalent; apprenticeship; marital status; nationality; ethnic origin; health problems which limit the kind or amount of work; hours; contract type; job related training in the last 3 months; sector; number of employees; shift work; date started with current employer; region. Once these controls are made the adjusted differential drops to 25.5%. Thus about one third of the raw differential is explained by the other individual and workplace characteristics but two thirds remain. It seems therefore that there is an occupation specific low pay effect.