It might be 2024 but the gender pay gap has just got worse.
Yesterday marked Equal Pay Day in the UK – the day when based on average pay, women stop being paid compared to men due to the gender pay gap and effectively work for free for the rest of the year.
Despite years of slow progress in tackling gender pay inequality, the gap has widened this year.
In a 2024 report, The Fawcett Society found the full-time gender pay gap now stands at 11.3%, up from 10.7% in 2023.
The latest figures from the ONS reveal that, on average, women earn £631 less than men every month, which has risen from £574 per month last year and tallies up to £7,572 a year.
This year’s Equal Pay Day fell on November 20, two days earlier than last year’s. While it might seem like a huge step backwards towards equality, The Fawcett Society remains committed to changing this.
The women’s rights organisation has worked with Dr Giacomo Vagni, a leading academic expert on the gender pay gap on the new report, which explores the causes of and solutions to this pay disparity.
Together, they have created the Gender Pay Gap calculator, to allow women to discover the extent of their pay disparity.
In their report, they found several factors still contribute to the wide pay disparity that need urgently tackling.
The organisation discovered women are more likely to take on part-time, low-paid or insecure work to balance caregiving responsibilities, which ‘affects their earning potential, often trapping them in lower-paying roles.
The lack of affordable and accessible childcare also subjects women to a ‘Motherhood Penalty’ that many fathers don’t experience, which includes leaving their careers or settling for jobs that don’t offer ‘the flexibility or pay they deserve’.
What is Equal Pay Day?
The Fawcett Society defines Equal Pay Day in the UK as ‘the day women effectively stop getting paid compared to men due to the gender pay gap, which currently stands at 11.31%. That’s £631 less in monthly take-home pay for women’.
Even when men and women work the same hours in the same roles, the organisation found nearly two-thirds of the gender pay gap remains unexplained, pointing to pay discrimination as a major factor holding women back.
Black, minoritised and disabled women face even greater pay disparities, according to the charity. Women of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and mixed white and black Caribbean backgrounds experience significantly higher pay gaps.
The charity says there are several steps needed to take to close the pay gap for good, and that ‘we can’t wait any longer’.
Making flexible work the default across all sectors without exception is a must, they claim, as is transforming the UK’s childcare system so it’s ‘affordable and accessible to all families.
Pay discrimination also needs to be ‘eradicated’, to ensure that men and women are paid equally for equal work, and intersectional pay gaps that affect black, minoritised and disabled women must be tackled.
Jemima Olchawski, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: ‘Equal Pay Day 2024 marks another painful reminder that gender pay inequality is not only persistent but risks deepening.
‘The gender pay gap now stands at 11.3% meaning that, on average, women effectively stop being paid compared to men on November 20 and will work for free for the rest of the year. Improvements in the ONS’ date methodology show that the situation could be worse than previously understood.
‘If we are to see meaningful change, flexible work must be the default across all sectors, and discrimination in pay must be eradicated. The gender pay gap is not just an issue for women – it’s an issue for our entire economy.
‘Until we address the inequalities that women face every day, we risk seeing this gap grow.’
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Before she took office as Britain’s first female chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves vowed to close the pay gap ‘once and for all’.
Jemima added: ‘We welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to closing the gender pay gap, these statistics make it clearer than ever that reaching that goal will require significant shifts in the approach to achieving equality.’
The gender pay gap is distinct from pay discrimination, which has been illegal since the 1970s and occurs when women are paid less than men for ‘equal work’, The Fawcett Society explains.
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Under UK law this is defined as ‘like work’ when two people are doing the same job, ‘work rated as equivalent’, where two people might be doing slightly different jobs but a job evaluation study assesses them as equivalent and ‘work of equal value’, where a Tribunal has assessed that two people’s jobs are of equal value, including factors such as effort, skill and decision-making.
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