Friday, November 10, 2017

Women's "equality"

The full-time gender pay gap based on median hourly earnings had fallen by 0.3 percentage points to 9.1 per cent in 2017. The TUC said at the time that the figures indicate the gender pay gap is still “decades” away from being closed.

Under legislation introduced in April, any UK business with at least 250 employees has 12 months to publish data on the difference between how much they pay men and women at different seniority levels. TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said, “Companies shouldn’t just be made to publish their gender pay gaps. They should be forced to explain how they’ll close them.” 

The World Economic Forum (WEF) earlier this month, the UK received a damning bill of health on economic participation and opportunity, scoring only 53rd out of the 144 nations examined. The WEF said that the poor score was largely because of the gaping divide in unpaid work between the sexes. The report showed that 57 per cent of all work that UK women do is unpaid, compared to 32 per cent for men. It also found that the mean monthly women’s earnings were just 66 per cent of men’s, putting the UK in 95th spot overall for estimated earned income. WEF report put the UK in 38th spot globally in terms of women in parliament and in 23rd spot in terms of women in ministerial positions.

Women are responsible for 74 per cent of the time spent on childcare. Perhaps as a result of this, women, following a divorce, have been found to have a 10 per cent long-term dip in income, while divorced men’s available incomes increase.

Women are four times more likely than men to leave their job as a result of being so-called “carers” – or people who look after both a child, or children, and adults.


Women also struggle to go back to a well-paid career after taking time out after their late 30s, but motherhood at any age has been found to significantly widen the average pay gap.




No comments: