The TUC analysis was published on Thursday 23rd February, the day when the average woman stops working for free compared to the average man (Women's Pay Day). The gender pay gap for all employees currently stands at 14.9%, a gap which means that working women must wait 54 days before they stop working for free.
The pay gap is widest for older women.Women aged between 50 and 59 have the highest pay gap (20.8%) and work the equivalent of 76 days for free. Meanwhile women aged 60 and over have a gender pay gap of 18.4% and work the equivalent of 67 days of the year for free.
The gender pay gap widens once a woman becomes a mother and older women take a financial hit for balancing work alongside caring for older relatives as well as children and grandchildren.
The picture changes according to different parts of the country.The gender pay gap is largest in the South-East of England (17.9%) where women work 65 days for free (until Monday 6 March).Women in the East of England (17.5% pay gap) and the East Midlands (16.6%) also work for free until 4 March and 1 March respectively.
The TUC analysis shows that there are still big gender pay gaps.These persist even in jobs that tend to be dominated by female workers like education and healthcare.Women get paid much less per hour on average than men because they are more likely to be in part-time jobs or are in lower-paid roles.
The gender pay gap is 22.2% in education, so the average woman effectively works for free for more than a fifth of the year (81 days) until Wednesday 22nd March.Meanwhile the gender pay gap in health care and social work jobs is 14%, so the average woman works for free for 51 days until Monday 20th February.The longest wait for Women's Pay Day comes in finance and insurance where the gender pay gap (31.2%) is the equivalent of 114 days, meaning women work for free for nearly a third of the year until Sunday 23rd April.
The TUC has called on ministers to boost rights to flexible working, and for a cash injection for the childcare sector.The TUC General Secretary, Paul Nowak, has pointed out that at current rates of progress it will take more than 20 years to close the gender pay gap.He states that companies should be required to publish action plans to explain what steps they'll take to close their pay gaps, and bosses who don't comply with the law should be fined.He states that the law should be changed to that all jobs are advertised with all the possible flexible options clearly stated.
Mr Nowak also states that ministers should fund childcare from the end of maternity leave to support working parents and that both parents need to be able to share responsibility for caring for their children.He points out that mothers will continue to take on the bulk of caring responsibilities and the attendant financial hit, if father and partners don't have better rights to well-paid leave that they can take in their own right.
While on the topic of gender pay it's worth mentioning that the Government Equalities Office (GEO) has just published some new statutory guidance for employers on gender pay gap reporting (on 1 March). This is basically just an updated version of its previous guidance, revised to make it clearer and simpler. There has been no change to the factual content.
