Gender pay gap must be closed

Women are less valuable than men – it’s a fact.

Now before you start wishing for the seven rings of Hell to be rained down upon me, please remember that I’m just the messenger here.

Instead, I’m afraid you’ll have to vent your wrath on society at large.

Because, sadly, it remains a fact in 21st Century Britain that your gender at birth will partly determine your life prospects.

New research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found the gender pay gap remains alive and well in Britain.

The research found that men, on average, received 18% more than women for an hour’s work.

So for every £1 paid to a man for a job well done, his female colleague will earn just 82 pence. For the same job. That is appalling, but for it to be the case in one of the world’s strongest and supposedly most progressive economies is just incredible.

This is a country – lest we forget – that has a female Prime Minister in Downing Street and a female First Minister running the show at Holyrood.

In fact Theresa May is acutely aware of the issue, having referenced it in her first speech as she took office outside Number 10.

But the gender pay gap is nothing new and, sadly, I suspect there will be people like me writing about it for decades to come.

The good news – if you can call it that – is that the pay gap has narrowed in recent years.

In 1993 it stood at 28%, and in 2003 it was at 23%.

So progress is being made. But the rate of closing of the gap – 10% in more than two decades – is not nearly fast enough.

Delve a little deeper into the figures, and you can see what is happening. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the gender pay gap remains stubbornly wide between mid and higher-educated women and men with, essentially, no movement in the past 20 years.

Where there has been a narrowing of the gap is among the lowest educated – those without A levels. But, even there, the gap starts to open again when children enter the equation.

A family takes two to start, but that’s where the equality begins and ends.

The researchers found the gender wage gap gradually increases after the arrival of the first child.

The pay gap then continues to widen for many years as mothers reduce their hours in order to provide childcare.

Women who work half-time lose out on wage progression, and those who take time out altogether before returning to the labour market miss out on earnings growth.

Once the gap is established it never closes.

And that surely is a national scandal right there.

Stay-at-home parents work every bit as hard as those sitting behind office desks to raise the next generation of talented young people to drive forward the economy.

They should not be permanently disadvantaged for making an incredible contribution to the country.

This is not a problem that will be easily solved.

Narrowing – I prefer the term closing – the pay gap will be hugely expensive and require an iron political will.

But it is something that, as a country, we should aspire to do and show that we value everyone equally.

A family takes two to start, but that’s where the equality begins and ends

The gender pay gap begins to open after children arrive.