MIND THE GAP

Today is Equal Pay Day - the day when women effective stop earning for the rest of the year

TODAY is the day that women effectively stop earning for the rest of the year. That is according to The Fawcett Society - a charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights at work.

It means there are 47 days left of 2019 where women will effectively be working for free in comparison to men, because of the gender pay gap. The Fawcett Society estimates that it will take 60 years to eradicate the gap entirely.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal the median gender pay gap for full-time work sees women earn 8.9% less than men.

Figures for part-time work show that women actually earned 3.1% more in average hourly earnings when compared to men.

However overall, when both full- and part-time work are accounted for, women earned 17.3% less than men.

This is because women fill more parttime jobs - which typically have lower hourly pay than full-time jobs - and also because women are more likely to be in lower-paid occupations.

When both these factors are taken into account, the overall wage gap between men and women is higher that when part-time or full-time workers are considered in isolation.

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average hourly earnings of men and women as a proportion of average hourly earnings of men’s wages.

It is not a measure of the difference in pay between men and women for doing the same job.

The gender pay gap is by no means exclusive to the UK.

Figures from Eurostat reveal that in 2017 (the latest year with data available), Estonia topped the gender pay gap league of shame at 26.6%, followed by Czechia (21.1%) and Germany (21.0%).

Sam Smethers, chief executive of The Fawcett Society, said: “Progress to close the gender pay gap is dismally slow and at this rate it will take 60 years to eradicate it.

“The pay gap represents a productivity gap and a waste of women’s skills and potential.

“Too many women are trapped in low paid part-time work or locked out of nontraditional sectors while others experience pay or pregnancy discrimination.

“We need to address the underlying causes, one of which is the unequal sharing of unpaid care work.

“That means supporting dads with a longer better paid period of leave, plus all jobs flexible unless there is a business reason for them not to be.”