If you’re bored of hearing about the gender pay gap, there’s a reason for that...

It’s because it's been around for….well, forever.?

It’s an issue that’s persisted since the dawn of paid-work: (did you know that between 1850 and 1890, women in British industry had earnings a little more than 40% of male earnings in industry?)?

Mercifully,?225 years later we’ve made some progress, but it’s been “glacial” according to Jemima Olchawski , CEO of the Fawcett Society . As she says, “unless more is done, we risk simply settling on the fact that, on average, women will always be paid less than men.”?

She’s not wrong: according to?the TUC, since 2011 the pay gap has been closing by only 0.4 percentage points a year – at current rates it will take until 2044 to close the gap. Bad? Yes.

Compared to global data though, this is positively utopian. The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap report has revealed that it could take up to 131 years for women to achieve equality to men.?

BUT, with (a potential new) Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves vowing to close the gender pay gap “once and for all” and make flexible working the norm in the UK, we might be in for much faster progress than we’ve experienced to date. Hallelujah!?

Let’s not for one minute underestimate the scale and complexity of the task at hand though.? For all the many black and white statistics cast out into the world, the topic is much more nuanced than it at first appears. Societal expectations, structural frameworks and life-choices play a pivotal role in a phenomenon that has far more wide-reaching implications than a pay slip.??

TO GIVE US ALL SOME CONTEXT HERE ARE SOME FAST FACTS:

• In? the UK, the gender pay gap is calculated by the Office for National Statistics as the difference between average hourly earnings of men and women as a proportion of men’s average hourly earnings. It is a measure across all jobs, not of the difference in pay between men and women doing the same job.?
• Any employer with 250 or more employees on a specific date each year (the ‘snapshot date’) must report their gender pay gap data. By law, men and women must get equal pay for doing 'equal work'. This is work that equal pay law classes as the same, similar, equivalent or of equal value.??
• Despite certain internet alcoves reporting that women earn more than men until their late 20s, ONS data from 2023 does report that salaries for men aged 22 to 29 are 7% higher at ￡31,408 compared to ￡29,380 for women?

So women at all ages and life-stages earn less than men. The real disparity kicks in around the age of 30, when the gap widens significantly until workers are in their 60s, no doubt due to more women than men having a more broken and disrupted career path due to caring responsibilities, either children or elderly relatives.?

Women are also more likely to take career breaks and re-enter the workforce in lower paid roles. Aside from the obvious lack of career advancement and salary, it has a huge impact on women’s pension assets: in fact?women’s pension assets are less than two-thirds (62%) of men’s by their late 50s: known as the “Gender Pension Gap”. To bridge the gender pension gap women would need to contribute for an additional 19 years or at a 6% higher rate than men (Pensions Policy Institute).?

There is also a disproportionate cost to certain groups, with 60% of women carers and 50% of carers from Black, Asian, Mixed Race or other ethnically diverse backgrounds stating that their caring responsibilities had prevented them from applying for a new job or promotion (BITC). Inequity, it seems, is not equal.?

And the final twist here? Women live longer than men.? They need more resources in later life.?

So what’s the solution? It’s manifold.? As we know at Women in Work, it’s not “one size fits all”.?Some women choose not to go back to work, but they should at least have the opportunity to work flexibly.?Flexibility is a key criteria for women, who still take on the majority of care-giving duties.?

Cultural reconditioning is another factor. High-profile role models of men and women working on a more equitable basis is important: it normalises progressive attitudes to parenting/ caring and work.?

Offering equal parental leave is critical. As Elliott Rae says, “Encouraging, supporting and enabling dads to be equal parents from the very beginning is fundamental to them becoming equal parents. And equal parenting is essential to addressing the gender pay gap, the motherhood penalty and achieving equality for mothers at home and at work.”

Businesses and policy-makers have a critical role to play in supporting and advancing equal pay. Let’s hope that it can be achieved in less than our lifetimes.?

Be part of and advance the conversation and join us at WIW this September.?

Register at www.wiwsummit.com