SDG 5: Gender equality
What does the data show?
From 2016 to 2020, the gender pay gap in Bristol shrank considerably, from 16.4% for those who live locally and 17.4% for those who live elsewhere to 7.5% and 9.6% respectively.
This has not been a linear trend, with rapid reductions in the gap during the most recent two years following eight years of fluctuations. Within Bristol City Council, the gender pay gap increased slightly from 2018 (4.07%) to 2020 (4.55%). There has been a slight increase in the proportion of women serving as councillors since the 2021 election. However, none of the elected leaders in the West of England Combined Authority local councils are women.
The rate of sexual offences decreased slightly from 2018 to 2020, from 3.3 to 2.6 offences per 1,000 population. However, the number of domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes (per 1,000 population) has risen from 18.5 in 2015/16 to 25.2 in 2020/21. While this percentage has increased steadily since 2015/16, it is part of a wider UK trend. Within that trend, Bristol’s incident rate is significantly lower than the UK average, which has risen from 23.9 in 2015/16 to 30.3 in 2020/21.
SDG 5: Gender equality
From 2016 to 2020, the gender pay gap in Bristol shrank considerably.
The Bristol Women in Business Charter brings together almost 40 commercial organisations committed to improving gender equality in the city.
What Bristol is doing
The Bristol Women’s Commission, a mayoral commission established to raise engagement with the challenges women face and to improve women’s representation in political discussions and decision making, played a crucial role in combatting increased women’s isolation during the COVID-19 restrictions. In addition, the Bristol Women in Business Charter brings together almost 40 commercial organisations committed to improving gender equality in the city.
Tackling period poverty
Bristol has continued its work to end period poverty by developing the period friendly schools initiative. This programme developed out of Period Friendly Bristol with the aim of ending stigma and promoting period dignity in all school settings. This has also been furthered by the Period Friendly Places charity which works to help other cities implement similar approaches to tackling period poverty.
Women’s safety
The city has also led a series of campaigns, called Bristol Nights, about women’s safety in nightclubs, following the rise in sexual abuse cases across the country. Concurrently, the Women’s Safety Charter connects organisations and businesses operating across Bristol’s night-time economy to tackle violence against women in Bristol’s bars, clubs, restaurants and venues. It includes a toolkit to train organisations so that they can improve the safety of women in their venue.
Bristol also established a Mayoral Commission on Domestic Abuse in 2020 to address some of the causes of domestic abuse. The Commission worked with 28 local and national organisations to produce a report on domestic abuse across Bristol. The It report identified seven principles and 35 recommendations to underpin the city’s response to domestic abuse and sexual violence.