The gender pay gap is increasing by £2.33 a month - which means working women are taking home more than £560 less than men.
New figures released by women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society to mark Equal Pay Day today shows that the shameful difference in after-tax earnings is up from £536 a month last year to £564 now.
Campaigners now want companies with as few as 100 staff to be made to report pay gap stats and are demanding bosses offer more flexible working.
A Survation survey of nearly 2,000 women shows that 53% would use the extra £500+ to turn heating on more often, 48% would pay for food or clothes for family while 36% would clear outstanding bills or loans.
Fawcett Society boss Jemima Olchawski said: “The cost-of-living crisis is hitting women hardest and forcing them to make impossible choices. Closing the gender pay gap would make an immediate difference
“We need urgent action to put women’s equality at the heart of our economic recovery.”
Farah Ghouri is a 30 year old married editor for a space technology company living in Leicester. She said: “If I had an extra £564 per month I wouldn’t feel so guilty about putting the heating on. Or about taking longer car journeys or trains to see friends and family.
“I went to an all girls school and really wish I’d been taught that negotiating with employers was a totally normal thing to do.”
Business analyst Rosie Flanagan, 26, does not live with her partner but in a shared house in London.
She said: “My company is open to flexible and remote working so I feel confident that if I choose to have children, I will be able to continue my career.
“It’s really important to have access to information about a potential employer’s gender pay gap data . Knowing this would definitely influence whether or not I took on a role.
“If I had an additional £564 I would use it to turn the heating on more often and save the rest as a down payment for a house.”
Fawcett polling showed 35% of women would like to work more paid hours but are unable to because lack of flexible working, caring responsibilities and too little affordable childcare.
More than four in ten black and minority women want to work more hours compared to one in three white women.
Ms Olchawski added: “Eighty per cent have struggled to pay their household bills in the last 6 months, compared with 68% of white women.
“The gender pay gap is worse for women of black and minoritised backgrounds, but without mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting we cannot understand the full extent of this.”
- The Fawcett Society made its calculation based on figures from the Office of National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings data.
