[UK] Equal Pay Day 2022 and the money women are missing

To mark Equal Pay Day on November 20, 2022, the Fawcett Society has released a new report and data that spotlight the ‘double trouble’ women are facing due to the combined impact of the cost of living crisis and the Gender Pay Gap, The Fawcett Society reports.

This report also reveals that during 2022 women will, on average, take home £564 less than men each month. Increasing from £536 in 2021.

Fawcett Society evidence shows that:

• Women take home, on average, £564 less per month than men in 2022 (£536 in 2021)
• More than half (53 per cent) of women would use the additional money to turn on heating and lights more often, and 48 per cent report that their mental health would improve
• Over a third (35 per cent) 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 per cent) have struggled to pay their household bills in the last 6 months, rising to 80 per cent for Black and minoritised women

The Fawcett Society is calling on the UK government to:

• Improve pay gap reporting by:
• Introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for employers
• 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’ about a male colleague’s pay for equal work

The gender pay gap

With a gender pay gap of 11.3 per cent, Equal Pay Day fell on November 20 this year. Equal Pay Day is the day in the year when - based on average pay - women overall stop being paid compared to men. The gender pay gap is closing at a snail’s pace, which The Fawcett Society says is of particular concern because women are at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis.

Gender pay gap causes

One key driver of the Gender Pay Gap is pay discrimination; when women are paid less than men for the same work. This is illegal (and has been since the 1970s) under the Equality Act. Other key drivers reportedly 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
•  a lack of women in more highly-paid sectors such as tech and engineering

According to The Fawcett Society, 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 taking pay gaps with them from job to job.

The full briefing is available here.

Source: The Fawcett Society

(Links via original reporting)

To mark Equal Pay Day on November 20, 2022, the Fawcett Society has released a new report and data that spotlight the ‘double trouble’ women are facing due to the combined impact of the cost of living crisis and the Gender Pay Gap, The Fawcett Society reports.

This report also reveals that during 2022 women will, on average, take home £564 less than men each month. Increasing from £536 in 2021.

Fawcett Society evidence shows that:

• Women take home, on average, £564 less per month than men in 2022 (£536 in 2021)
• More than half (53 per cent) of women would use the additional money to turn on heating and lights more often, and 48 per cent report that their mental health would improve
• Over a third (35 per cent) 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 per cent) have struggled to pay their household bills in the last 6 months, rising to 80 per cent for Black and minoritised women

The Fawcett Society is calling on the UK government to:

• Improve pay gap reporting by:
• Introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for employers
• 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’ about a male colleague’s pay for equal work

The gender pay gap

With a gender pay gap of 11.3 per cent, Equal Pay Day fell on November 20 this year. Equal Pay Day is the day in the year when - based on average pay - women overall stop being paid compared to men. The gender pay gap is closing at a snail’s pace, which The Fawcett Society says is of particular concern because women are at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis.

Gender pay gap causes

One key driver of the Gender Pay Gap is pay discrimination; when women are paid less than men for the same work. This is illegal (and has been since the 1970s) under the Equality Act. Other key drivers reportedly 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
•  a lack of women in more highly-paid sectors such as tech and engineering

According to The Fawcett Society, 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 taking pay gaps with them from job to job.

The full briefing is available here.

Source: The Fawcett Society

(Links via original reporting)