MEN are increasingly opting to work part time, but even those who work fewer hours are refusing to pick up on their share of the housework, a new report has revealed.

While many women continue to juggle low paid work with chores, men’s contribution to housework is low, regardless of the hours they do, according to a report on pay inequality.

To add insult to injury, the women who do most housework tend to experience a pay gap even compared with the small numbers of low paid men who also do a lot about the home.

The Gender Pay Gap report says the recession has forced more men into part time low paid work – often displacing low paid women. The number of men in low-paid part time work has increased fourfold over the last 20 years with one in five low paid men now working part time.

However the report says: “Where women work fewer hours they do more housework but men do not vary their housework hours relative to hours worked – their contribution tends to remain low regardless.”

The report, published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission is accompanied by calls for a bigger push to combat unfairness in pay for women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities and medical conditions. It finds that women are paid 15 per cent less on average than men in Scotland, while ethnic minority employees receive on average 5.7 per cent less and disabled workers are paid 13.6 per cent less than non-disabled people.

The gender pay gap is 18 pence an hour lower in Greater Glasgow than in the rest of Scotland. But men who have experienced depression or epilepsy face a significant pay penalty compared with those unaffected. Half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani men earn less than the living wage, compared with less than a fifth of white men.

The report calls for employers to make even the most senior roles available on a part time or flexible basis and says more should be done to tackle bias in recruitment and gender stereotyping in education. From primary age, too many children are still receiving conventional limiting views about jobs for men and women, it says, although it praises the Scottish Government for initiatives to encourage girls to consider careers in science, and technology, and efforts to drive up the numbers of men working in childcare.

Professor Lesley Sawers, Scotland Commission for the EHRC said the pay gap was symbolic of a wider lack of equality. “Subject choices and stereotypes in education can send children on set paths which often reflect the limited expectations of women, ethnic minorities and disabled people.”

Such stereotypes are then reinforced by recruitment, pay and promotion policies and an attitude that “that is just the way things are,” she said. “For this to change, we need to overhaul our culture and make flexible working the norm; looking beyond women as the primary carers and having tough conversations about the bias that is rife in our society.”

She said public bodies should demand bidders for contracts reveal their pay gap as part of the tender process, while other employers should voluntarily reveal their gender pay gaps, and men and women should be encouraged to share childcare responsibilities. “We have been talking about equal pay for years, but the pace of change is glacial,” she said.