It’s nearly 40 years since equal pay legislation came into force in the UK. Nevertheless, the facts say that

• Women working full-time in the UK get paid 17.1% less than men.
• For ethnic minority women, the gap is even higher at 20%.
• For women working part-time compared to men working full-time the gap is 36% per hour – rising to 45% in London.

Take Action on Equal Day Pay Source:www.wftv.org.uk

There are threes main reasons for these gaps.

• Firstly, there’s straight-forward discrimination by employers – paying women less than men to do the same job.
• Secondly, work traditionally done by women is still paid less. For instance, a nurse is paid less than a police officer.
• Thirdly, the UK has one of the longest working hours’ cultures in the EU, and as long as women shoulder the majority of parenting and caring responsibilities, women are unable to compete in the UK workplace.

For historical reasons I cite the following extract from Elaine’s Morgan book “The Descent of Woman” published in 1972.

A high propostion of the resistance to equal pay and opportunity, has in the past stemmed from pure pigheaded male chauvinism. Trade unionisms theoretically wedded to the principle of “the rate of job” accepted it as perfectly natiral tht a woman working on the same bench as a man for the same job and with equal efficiency, even if she had the same number of dependants to support, should be paid something between half and two thirds of their wages because she was a woman, and for no other reason.

Employers even more fervently supported this ’natural’ order order of things, and used the most ingenious arguments in support of it. It was because ’women are supported by their husbands ‘ – yet single women get paid no more than married ones. It was because ‘men have wives and families’ – yet confirmed batchelors got paid no less. It was because ‘women have to get married’ or ‘women stay off work more often, to nurse children, etc’ – yet more than half of the female work force in Britain  today is composed of married women over forty, and they are statically less liable to absenteeism, to changing their jobs, or to coming out on strike, than the average man. Nobod offers to pay them at a higher rate on this account.

30th October is Equal Pay Day. Take Action to end the gender pay gap.

Sources: Fawcett Society, ”The Descent of Woman” by Elaine Morgan, page 240