Thursday 10th November 2016 marks Equal Pay Day (EPD), the date from which women are effectively working for free to the end of the calendar year, according to calculations from the Fawcett Society which suggest it will take 60 years to reduce the ongoing gap between male and female pay rates
EPD is calculated using the mean full time gender pay gap, which is currently 13.9%, and falls one day later than EPD 2015 which means the pay gap is closing. However, the Fawcett Society says that at the current rate of progress it will take over 60 years to close the gender pay gap completely.
The Fawcett Society said it welcomes the government’s forthcoming introduction of mandatory gender pay gap reporting, which will mean that companies with over 250 staff will be obliged to publish both their mean and median pay gap.
However, it says that to ensure this step genuinely tackles the pay gap there should also be a requirement to publish an action plan on how employers will close the gap and there must be penalties for those who do not comply.
Ed Stacey, head of employment law at PwC, said: ‘The fact Equal Pay Day is only one day later than last year shows there is still much more work to be done to close the gender gap. The introduction of mandatory gender pay gap reporting from April next year is a positive step and should go some way to improve this position. However, there are concerns that these new requirements do not go far enough.’
Laura Hinton, executive board member and head of people at PwC, said: ‘Until we tackle the underlying causes of the gap, progress will be slow. This is about more than just publishing pay gap data - organisations need a plan for how they’re going to close it. This means setting gender and ethnicity targets, challenging recruitment processes, making more jobs available flexibly, encouraging more men to take shared parental leave and getting more experienced women back into work after career breaks.’
