Gender pay gap widens for women in 30's
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has released a report showing that the pay gap between men and women trebles when women reach their 30's.
GP pay bill 1.8 billion above budgetThe report entitled "Closing the Gender Pay Gap" says that adult women in all age groups earn less than men of the same age. However the biggest pay gap is between men and women in their 30's.
The report shows that women aged 22-29 typically earn 3.3 per cent less than men of the same age. The gap rises sharply among the 30-39 age group, where women earn 11.2 per cent less than men.
According to the report, likely causes of the gender pay gap include the concentration of women in low-paid jobs like childcare and cleaning, undervaluing women's skills and the "employment penalty" for mothers.
The report said that the motherhood penalty partly explains why the pay gap increases so much for women in their 30's.
According to the report, women are two times more likely to be poor than men, with 27 per cent of women being considered poor (meaning they are in the lowest earning bracket), compared with 13 per cent of men. The report also says that the average disposable income for women is 127, 85 less than men.
The report said that women's poverty could be attributed to a lack of quality, well-paid work. Around half of all part-time jobs are low paid. The UK has 7.5 million part time workers, over three quarters of whom are women, said the report. The report claimed that on average women working part time earned 40 per cent less per hour than men working full time.
Brandan Barber, general secretary of the TUC said, "We all expect our wages to increase as our careers progress. But women's wages start to stagnate as early as their 30s and many are paying an unacceptable penalty simply for having children. Despite girls outperforming boys at school and at university, too many employers are still failing to make use of women's skills. This waste of talent isn't just hurting their take home pay, it's harming the UK economy too.
"When women earn poverty wages, the whole family suffers. If the Government is serious about ending child poverty, it must raise family income by creating better paid, quality part-time work Britain's 7.5 million."
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