With a gender pay gap of 11.3%, the UK’s Equal Pay Day fell on 20th November (yesterday), this year. This is the day in the year when, based on average pay, women overall stop being paid compared to men.
The UK’s gender pay gap is closing at a glacial pace, which is concerning given that women are at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis, highlighted the Fawcett Society charity, which campaigns for gender equality and women’s rights at work, at home and in public life. The gender pay gap is the difference between the average pay of men and women within a particular group or population.
To mark Equal Pay Day 2022, the Fawcett Society has released a new report and data which shines a light on the double trouble women are facing due to the combined impact of the cost-of-living crisis and the Gender Pay Gap. Fawcett uses the mean, full-time, hourly gender pay gap for the UK to calculate the gender pay gap for Equal Pay Day which this year is 11.3%, a tiny decrease from 11.9% last year.
GENDER PAY GAP DATA
According to the report, 2022 women will, on average, take home £564 less than men each month – up from £536 in 2021. The report also revealed that:
- More than half (53%) of women would use the additional money to turn on heating and lights more often, and 48% report that their mental health would improve.
- Over a third (35%) of women want to work but are prevented by reasons including a lack of flexible working options and affordable childcare.
- More than two-thirds of women (68%) have struggled to pay their household bills in the last 6 months, rising to 80% for Black and women from minority communities.
- The gender pay gap continues to be worse for older women, varying between 14.0% and 15.2% for women aged over 40.
GENDER PAY GAP BARELY SHIFTED
“It is deeply disappointing that the gender pay gap has barely shifted in the past few years, especially given the cost-of-living crisis is hitting women the hardest and forcing them to make impossible choices. Other data indicates that the pay gap may be even worse for women of colour – though we still don’t know the full picture,” stated Jemima Olchawski, CEO of the Fawcett Society. “We need more urgent action now, to put women’s equality at the heart of our economic recovery.”
Olchawski said that the government “should make flexible work the default with a requirement for jobs to be advertised as flexible upfront, to enable more women to work”. “We need mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting and action plans, and we need employers to stop asking discriminatory salary history questions,” she added. “Women can’t afford to wait any longer for the gap to close.”
TIME FOR ACTION
The Fawcett Societ is calling on the Government to:
- Improve pay gap reporting by introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for employers; and requiring employers to publish action plans to tackle their pay gaps, so that real action is taken to reduce pay inequality with accountability and transparency built in.
- Lowering the threshold for pay gap reporting to 100 employees, bringing the UK closer to the standards set by other countries.
- Require employers to offer flexible work arrangements as default and advertise jobs with flexibility built-in.
- Reform the childcare system to increase affordability whilst ensuring our children get the best start in life.
- Ban questions about salary history during recruitment and require salary bands to be displayed on job advertisements.
- Introduce a free standing and legally enforceable ‘Right to Know’ what a male colleague is paid for equal work.
GENDER PAY GAP DRIVERS
What causes the gender pay gap? One key driver is pay discrimination – when women are paid less than men for the same work – which is illegal (and has been since the 1970s) under the Equality Act. Other key drivers include the failure to promote women within organisations, undervaluing and underpaying the types of work women are more likely to do – such as social care and childcare work – and a lack of women in more highly paid sectors such as tech and engineering.
Recruitment practices such as salary history questions and advertising jobs without salary bands can also perpetuate pay gaps, contributing to women and people of colour carrying pay gaps around with them from job to job. You can read the full report here.
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