The gender pay gap is still growing despite more than 30 years of equal pay and sex discrimination legislation, a Scottish Government report has found.

Men in full-time employment are now paid 15% more than their female equivalents and 34% more than women in part-time work according to the annual report into the Gender Equality Scheme.

The report also found wide variations between the gender pay gap in different sectors. The gap ranges from 2% in sales and customer service occupations to as high as 28.1% for managers and senior officials.

According to the report: "There has been the odd fluctuation over the years in the general downward trend of the pay gap and this happened again in 2007. The full-time gender pay gap in Scotland increased slightly - the mean from 14% in 2006 to 15%, the median from 10% in 2006 to 12%. However, there were still increases in earnings for both men and women in Scotland."

The report added: "The increase in the gap was mainly caused by higher increases for men than women in the managers and senior officials' occupation group, and particularly in the associate professional and technical occupations.

"Also, the private sector had higher increases than in the public sector and, given that a considerably lower proportion of women work in the private sector compared to men, this has a large effect on the gender pay gap in Scotland."

Comparing women working part-time with men working full-time, the report found an average pay gap of 34% - a drop from 35% in 2006 - and 37% based on the median, which is the same in 2006.

The findings of the report also reveal that in tackling occupational segregation - the concentration of men and women in different kinds of jobs or in different grades - there has been a "slight increase" in the number of men entering the pre-school and childcare workforce. In 2007, 3% of men entered the profession, a 1% increase from 2006.

The report also found that, in 2007, women made up a large majority of the workers in personal services (85%), administrative and secretarial occupations (79%), and sales and customer services (70%).

By contrast, men represent the large majority of workers in the occupational categories of managers and senior officials (67%), process, plant and machine operatives (86%), and skilled trades (92%).

While women predominate in key public sector workforces such as teaching (92% of primary teachers, and 60% of secondary teachers in 2007), the NHS (78% in 2007) and local government (68% in 2007), they are under-represented in senior positions.

Other objectives included in the report are violence against women, childcare, caring and flexible working, improved networks with men, transgender equality, mainstreaming gender equality, training of staff, and data gathering.

Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, said: "Despite over 30 years of anti-discrimination legislation we know that people continue to face discrimination and harassment because of their sex.

"There is still much to be done to achieve gender equality in Scotland. We are therefore committed to ensuring that our policies, practices and services understand and address the different needs of women and men, boys and girls to develop better and more responsive policies, which will support us in creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all to flourish."

Chris Benson, a solicitor who works with the UK-wide Support Equal Pay campaign group, said of the findings: "It is really disappointing that, despite government efforts, the pay gap is still growing.

"Lots of local authorities have recently paid out to women due to past pay inequalities.

"These reviewed pay scales should begin to narrow the gap over the next few years, which is positive.

"But this still leaves issues to be addressed, including the gender bias in relation to senior staff."

I think a bias against women still does exist'

It was the experience of being at the brunt of discrimination that made delicatessen owner Mhairi Taylor all the more aware of treating her employees equally, she says.

Ms Taylor set up her first business, Delizique, a delicatessen in the west end of Glasgow, around seven years ago and now employs eight full-time and 14 part-time members of staff.

She has a 50-50 mix of men and women and said she pays everyone according to skill level, not gender.

The environment she has created at Delizique is in contrast to her past experiences in the workplace.

Ms Taylor left a management job with a leading supermarket chain 15 years ago because she believed her gender had meant she was passed over for promotion.

"To have had any chance of being a store manager, you had to first become a grocery manager. At that time, the company had no women grocery managers in Scotland. It was a job I felt ready to do, but I was never given the chance."

Of the figures suggesting society's gender pay gap is still widening, she said: "I think a bias does still exist. Women can be taught to have lower expectations, particularly part-time workers.

"It isn't fair but it is an attitude left over from a society where women stayed in the home and didn't have much status. This has carried on into the workplace."