Women ‘stop being paid’ from 3.34pm

Women will work for nothing from this afternoon (10 November), according to the latest figures on the UK’s gender pay gap.

November 10 is the annual Equal Pay Day for 2017, based on the fact that the average full-time pay gap currently stands at 14.1%, or 85p for a woman compared with every £1 a man earns.

That means that from 3.34pm today, women effectively stop being paid.

Liverpool’s The Women’s Organisation, which supports female entrepreneurs throughout the region, is marking this year’s Equal Pay Day with the slogan ‘3.34 – we’re out the door’, in a bid to highlight the pay gap and the slow progress to close it, despite the passing of the Equal Pay Act in 1970 – 47 years ago.

Although this year’s Equal Pay Day falls one day later than last year, it is estimated it could take decades to close the pay gap completely for UK women.

TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “The full-time gender pay gap has inched a bit smaller, but there is still a chasm between men and women’s earnings.

“At this rate it’ll take decades for women to get paid the same as men. The government needs to crank up the pressure on employers.”

Studies by The Fawcett Society, a UK charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights since 1866, show just how pernicious the current system is.

It says the gender pay gap is at its lowest for women in their 20s (5.5%), but opens up significantly for women in their 50s (18.6%).

It also differs across industries, standing at 32.8% in finance and insurance, but less than 6% for those working in administrative and support services.

Closing the gender pay gap seems a no-brainer for the economy. The latest WEF figures indicate that pay parity for women could add £250bn to the UK’s GDP.

Maggie O’Carroll, co-founder and chief executive of The Women’s Organisation, said: “Progress to close the gender gap is not just slow, it is glacial. Things must move quicker if we are ever to achieve gender equality and parity.

“A societal shift must occur where we begin to value women’s work at the same level we value the work that men do.”

She added: “At The Women’s Organisation we will persist, we will remain aware of these inequalities and continue to campaign for change locally, nationally, and internationally.”