Today marks Equal Pay Day, the day when, based on average pay, women effectively stop being paid compared to men and work for free for the rest of the year.

The Fawcett Society found that the gender pay gap has widened, with the mean full-time pay gap standing at 11.3% – up from 10.7% in 2023. The widening gap may be partly due to methodology improvements in the government’s annual survey of hours and earnings to include the highest earners, suggesting that the gender pay gap may have been underestimated in previous years.

To mark Equal Pay Day in 2024, the Fawcett Society has worked with Dr Giacomo Vagni, a leading academic and expert on the gender pay gap, on a new report exploring the causes of and solutions to this pay disparity. The Fawcett Society has also created the Gender Pay Gap Calculator to give women the tools to find out their pay gap compared to the average man.

The widening gender pay gap means that, on average, every month working women take home £631 less than men – up from £574 per month last year.

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.” 

Before she took office as the first female chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves set a goal of closing the gender pay gap during her time in the role.

The Fawcett Society welcomes Reeves’s commitment to closing the pay gap for good, but to see genuine progress, action is urgently needed.

The women’s rights organisation is calling for flexible work to be made the default, not the exception, across all sectors and at every level. Women are more likely to take on part-time, low-paid or insecure work to balance caregiving responsibilities, perpetuating inequality and holding women back.

A transformation of the childcare system is also needed, especially as mothers continue to be hit by the motherhood penalty. A lack of affordable childcare and well-paid flexible work leaves women with fewer career opportunities, regardless of their qualifications or previous career success.

Pay discrimination also needs to be tackled. Fawcett’s Equal Pay Day report reveals that almost two-thirds of the gender pay gap would still exist even if men and women worked the same hours, in the same jobs and were of the same age, ethnicity and background.

And any strategy to close the gender pay gap must also address the intersectional nature of this gap. Government data shows that pay gaps for women of Bangladeshi (28.4%), Pakistani (25.9%) and mixed white and Black Caribbean (25%) heritage are significantly higher than for white British men.

Olchawski explains that “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.”

Image: Getty