Women paid £9k less than men and must work until they are 80 to earn the same
The pay gap between men and women is an astonishing £9,096 on average per year, or 23 per cent, according to new figures released today.
Despite attempts to ensure equal pay between the genders, women can still expect to earn less than their male colleagues for the same job, with the gap widest at age 40 plus where women take home 35 per cent less than men.
The research, published by the Chartered Management Institute, also shows that to earn the same over a whole career, women would have to work until they were 80 years old – a full 14 years more than men in the same roles.
“Women and men should be paid on the basis of their performance in their particular roles, but this is clearly not yet the case for far too many,” chief executive of the CMI Ann Francke said.
“It’s not right that women would have to work until almost 80 for the same pay rewards as men. We have to stamp out cultures that excuse this as the result of time out for motherhood and tackle gender bias in pay policies that put too much emphasis on time served,” she added.
Another major point of difference between men and women in the workplace comes with bonus payments, with male directors taking home £204,373 compared to about £172,000 for women.
“We have laws against discrimination and in support of equal pay, but governments can no more to bring about total equality than they can extract sunbeams from cucumbers,” said professor of economics Len Shackleton, of Buckingham university.