Is your workplace 25 years from gender pay equality?

The Equal Opportunities Commission has claimed it will take 25 years to achieve equal pay between men and women at current rates of progress, in a report yesterday.

In yesterday’s Gender Agenda paper, the watchdog said women working full-time earned 17% less per hour than men, while part-time women earned 38% less per hour than full-time men, 32 years after the Equal Pay Act.

The gap is due to discrimination, women’s concentration in low-paid sectors, including social care, and the unequal impact of having children on men and women’s careers, the EOC says.

We want to know how far gender pay inequality is a problem in your workplace, both within social care settings and between the sector and other lines of work, for instance in local authorities? Email us your responses and we will post them on the website.

The issue of equal pay has reached a head in local government, where unions Unison, GMB and Unite are leading a campaign against councils’ failure to implement the single status agreement, which is designed to implement equal pay for work of equal value.

Unison estimates that three-quarters of women in local government are not receiving equal pay, despite the fact that single status should have been implemented in April.

But we also want to hear how far unequal pay is an issue in voluntary and private sector organisations where social care practitioners work, as well as in councils.

Related information:

Councils face legal action over single status pay deals

Stereotype of women as carers driving low pay and high turnover in social care