Across the UK, the number of young women being discriminated against at work is on the rise, with rates of discrimination rising from 42% in 2022 to 53% in 2024. New research from the charity Young Women’s Trust has found that young women are reporting more incidents of discrimination year on year.

“It’s deeply alarming that they’re now more likely to experience it than not,” Claire Reindorp, chief executive at Young Women’s Trust, tells Stylist. “We don’t know exactly why this is the case but 86% said that they would be able to recognise discrimination if they experienced or witnessed it, so perhaps there’s increased awareness and lower tolerance.”

Young women told the charity that discrimination looked like unfair treatment due to their gender, age, appearance, ethnicity, mental health and caring responsibilities. For young Black women, racial discrimination rose to 39%, up from 31% in 2022, and for young Asian women, rates have increased from 24% in 2022, to 31% in 2024.

Despite it being illegal, Reindorp says nearly a quarter of young women are still getting paid less than men for the same work. 

“They can be passed over for promotions,” she says. “They’ve told us of having responsibilities taken off them when they’ve become pregnant. Or it can be more subtle behaviour, like comments made in the name of ‘banter’, which are actually really harmful. On another extreme, sexual harassment is still an unacceptably common part of working life for young women, with 26% saying that they have experienced this.”

The combination of age and gender, along with other aspects of their identity, leaves certain young women particularly exposed to prejudice on multiple fronts, and Reindorp worries the impacts could “scar” young women well into their futures – shattering confidence resulting in poor mental health, holding them back from promotions, or even pushing them out of work entirely.

Adele*, a Londoner in her early 30s, remembers finally getting a job interview in 2021 after sending out hundreds of job applications for administrative and personal assistant roles. Prior to the interview, she was told on the phone that her CV “looked amazing” and that the employers were really looking forward to the interview. When she arrived on the day, there was only one woman interviewing her.

“I went in, and upon arrival, she realised I wasn’t white,” Adele tells Stylist. “The interview process took a complete turn. She kept maximising the job role and was just going through the motions. She was never going to give me a job.”

At another job interview, Adele used the last of her money to travel on the bus. “I was desperate,” she describes. “I wasn’t eating properly. I was in debt. I was behind on rent. But when they saw I was Black, the interview lasted 10 minutes. You can’t find out about me in 10 minutes. It was demoralising.” On the bus ride home, she thought about how she’d probably go hungry that night because she forfeited her food money to travel to a job interview she didn’t get.

Adele eventually secured a job as a customer service clerk and was the only Black woman in the department. She experienced frequent microaggressions, including being told that her lunch smelled. “They tried to get rid of me – to sack me for things I didn’t do,” she says. “I didn’t realise until after I’d left that they had paid me £1,000 less than my white counterparts who were doing the same role as me. I mentioned it to my manager, and he just dismissed me.”

Adele now works as an actor, which comes with its own incidents of discrimination. She has noticed on multiple occasions that white actors will be able to easily get their hair and make-up done for a shoot, whereas “I’d have to come in already dressed, and do my hair and make-up myself,” she says. “Because [the stylists and make-up artists] don’t feel confident to do it or don’t want to do it.”

Adele says the “whole of the UK is becoming quite toxic” and that there is a “resurrection of racial discrimination.”

“I feel like we’re going backwards,” she adds.

Despite being able to recognise discrimination, 24% of young women said they wouldn’t feel comfortable to challenge or report it, with 38% saying they wouldn’t feel confident to challenge pay inequality.

“Young women often tell us that when they have raised incidences of discrimination, they’re not taken seriously or told to ‘take it on the chin’,” says Reindorp. “Sometimes the discrimination is coming from a male manager, which makes it incredibly hard to challenge. If a young woman is in an insecure job, or on a zero hours contract, they might not dare rock the boat if they quite simply need to get more shifts – this can leave young women very exposed.”

Human resource decision-makers were also surveyed as part of the research. Of these, 10% admitted that they were aware of women being paid less than men for jobs at the same level, 33% said they agreed that sexist behaviour still exists in their organisation and 27% said that women are not given the same opportunities as men to progress in their organisation.

“Many companies are getting better at tackling discrimination and want to do the right thing,” Reindorp acknowledges. “Lots of the managers in our survey recognised the need to do more but pointed to a lack of resources and not knowing what best practice is. Smaller workplaces might not have effective HR practices in place, so when young women face this unacceptable behaviour, there’s simply nowhere to turn.”

Sarah* vividly remembers the discrimination she faced while working as a sales colleague at a clothing retail store years ago. It was her first job and the shop was close to her college, which was important as she was a student without a car. She was contracted for between four and 20 hours throughout the time she worked there (a little over two years). “I would get taunts from colleagues and managers,” the British Indian woman shares. “They’d say: ‘You work fewer hours, so you should work the hardest.’ It makes you feel less valued.”

All the cleaning would be reserved for Sarah – emptying bins, mopping floors and cleaning mirrors. “The boss would touch the mirrors with sticky fingers to create a mess that they would then make me clean,” she says.

Her boss also frequently commented on Sarah’s weight, once saying in front of customers that Sarah was too skinny to get pregnant. Although Sarah would have liked to leave the job, she didn’t feel she could. “I had to bear it due to my financial circumstances, and the location was close to me,” she says. “I didn’t want to leave the job because it wouldn’t look good on my CV, and what if I didn’t get another work opportunity?”

A few years later, Sarah started working in a call centre. By this time, she had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome. When she disclosed her condition to her manager in June, she requested part-time hours to accommodate for her disability. She claims her request was “disregarded”. Following the disclosure, she said her boss started to micromanage Sarah’s work, and became “argumentative”, often shouting at Sarah in front of colleagues. Sarah had to take time off at different points to deal with her health, which she had made her manager and HR aware of beforehand, and she believes this in large part led to her dismissal in July 2023.

“I experienced four types of discrimination,” she concludes. “Age, race, religion and disability. And it’s impacted my working life. People question why I left the job after working there for three months. It made me look unreliable.”

Faith* has worked and volunteered across London for charities and has experienced significant barriers in her career progression.

“I’m not progressing at work the way I would like,” the 26-year-old tells Stylist. “A colleague and I, who’s also a younger woman, put forward a proposal for a project that was overlooked. We mentioned it in meetings, and nothing would happen. Then we gave it to a senior male manager, and when he shared the same proposal with leadership, it was celebrated. “I don’t know if it’s just me or if it’s really discrimination. You doubt yourself when things like this happen.”

She’s also noticed that stark disparities in representation in the workplace. “In many organisations, senior roles are predominantly held by older white men, while front-line roles are often filled by women of colour,” she explains. “It seems to be women of colour at the front line or in housekeeping, white women in managerial roles, and middle-aged white men in senior and executive positions. There needs to be more diverse leadership to bring different perspectives and challenge biases that exist in the workplace.”

As the government looks to strengthen and simplify enforcement of worker’s rights as part of its Employment Rights Bill and plan to Make Work Pay, Young Women’s Trust is calling for young women to be part of the design of the enforcement system to make sure it’s accessible and effective.

“Often if you’re a young woman experiencing something that’s not right at work, you have no idea whether it is discrimination or not, what the law is or where to turn – we need this information – and the agencies that are there to protect workers – to be easy to find and use,” Reindorp says.

The charity is also urging employers to create workplace cultures of zero tolerance to discrimination – having a simple and clear reporting process, ensuring incidences are properly investigated and reported and ensuring support is in place for anyone who faces it.

“Young women represent a wealth of potential for employers looking to recruit and retain a skilled workforce, so companies must act to ensure that an entire talent pool isn’t left behind,” Reindorp concludes. “Ultimately, if young women are kept out of the workplace and held back from earning a living, the pay gap will widen and generations of women will continue to face a lifetime of lower pay than their male peers. It’s time for change and we need real action.”

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity. 

Images: Adobe