3.8 Summary: Wage-related underemployment

The wage-related underemployed are workers who are underpaid for what they do. In this report, we compare the wages of workers with others in their occupational grouping: we define being underpaid as earning wages that are at least 20% lower than the median for that occupation. We show that wage-underemployment is prevalent in the UK affecting over a fifth of working men and almost a third of working women, with levels persistent over time. It impacts most heavily on younger workers, people working in accommodation and food service industries, and, perhaps surprisingly, managers and professionals.