Fancy clocking off early? Right this moment – due to the gender pay hole – ladies within the UK cease being paid in comparison with males, so contemplate this your signal.
Equal Pay Day – a marketing campaign launched by The Fawcett Society – signifies the day within the yr that ladies successfully cease incomes in comparison with their male counterparts. Yep, we’re just about working at no cost now until Christmas.
The most recent analysis exhibits that the gender pay hole is wider than campaigners beforehand thought. Utilizing the imply, full-time, hourly gender pay hole for the UK to calculate the gender pay hole for Equal Pay Day, The Fawcett Society discovered that the hole between males’s and ladies’s earnings is 11.3%, up from 10.7% in 2023.
Because of this, on common, each month, working ladies take residence £631 lower than males – that’s £7,572 over the yr. That is up from £574 per thirty days final yr (£6,888 over the yr).
That is the primary time the gender pay hole has undoubtedly widened since 2013. This might partially be defined by enhancements within the Authorities’s methodology to incorporate the best earners, which means that the gender pay hole has been underestimated in recent times.
Questioning when you’re paid lower than your male counterparts at work? The Fawcett Society has simply launched a brand new calculator, which takes lower than 10 seconds to fill out and can present you the gender pay hole between you and the common man. You’ll be able to try it out right here.
Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has dedicated to ending the gender pay hole. In June, previous to the final election, Reeves instructed The Guardian, “In the position of chancellor, I believe the biggest impact that I can make to the lives of ordinary women, women who go out to work, is to close the gender pay gap once and for all.”
Whereas the Fawcett Society has welcomed Reeves’ dedication to ending gender pay inequality, they’ve referred to as for a joined-up, transformational technique throughout all authorities departments – quite than lip service.
Jemima Olchawski, Chief Government of the Fawcett Society, “To truly achieve equality, we need a comprehensive, cross-departmental strategy that tackles the root causes of the gap, including the undervaluing of women’s work, a lack of affordable childcare, and the systemic barriers that prevent women, particularly mothers, from reaching their full potential in the workforce.
“If we are to see meaningful change, flexible work must be the default across all sectors, and discrimination in pay must be eradicated. The gender pay gap is not just an issue for women—it’s an issue for our entire economy. Until we address the inequalities that women face every day, we risk seeing this gap grow.”
The report discovered {that a} whopping two-thirds of the gender pay hole would nonetheless exist even when women and men labored precisely the identical hours, in the identical jobs, and had been of the identical age, ethnicity, and background. This means that pay discrimination continues to be a big challenge throughout UK workplaces.
The Fawcett Society emphasises the necessity for an intersectional method to closing the pay hole, taking into consideration the pay disparities skilled by Black, minoritised, and disabled ladies.
The charity cites ONS knowledge, exhibiting that pay gaps for ladies of Bangladeshi (28.4%), Pakistani (25.9%), and Combined White and Black Caribbean (25%) are considerably larger than for white British males.
As Jemima Olchawski, Fawcett Society CE, tells GLAMOUR, “The ethnicity pay hole is creating double bother for Black and minoritised ladies. The figures that we’ve are stark. Girls of Bangladeshi heritage are incomes, on common, nearly a 3rd much less per hour than white British males – this must be a nationwide outrage.
