Women in their 30s are hit hardest by gender pay gap

28 March 2008 in Employment Work, Publication, Research

The gender pay gap more than trebles when women reach their 30s, according to a new TUC report Closing the Gender Pay Gap, published on the eve of the 2008 TUC Women’s Conference says that adult women in all age groups earn less than men of the same age. The sharpest increase in the gender pay gap occurs when women reach their 30s. The difference between men’s and women’s full-time earnings rises from 3.3 per cent for women aged 22-29 to 11.2 per cent for women aged 30-39.

Several causes are cited for the gender pay gap, including the concentration of women in low-paid jobs such as childcare and cleaning, the undervaluing of women’s skills and the employment penalty for mothers. This ‘motherhood penalty’ partly explains why the gender pay gap increases so rapidly for women in their 30s.

The report also says that women are twice as likely to be poor as men. Over one in four women (27 per cent) are classified as poor, by being in the lowest earning bracket, compared to just 13 per cent of men. The average weekly disposable income for women is £127, £85 less than men.

A lack of quality, well-paid work is cited as one of the main causes of women’s poverty, as nearly half of all part-time jobs are low paid. Women working part-time earn nearly 40 per cent less per hour than men working full-time. With 7.5 million part-time workers, Britain has one of the highest proportions of this type of work in Europe, and more than three-quarters are female.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber 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 part-time workers.’

Minister for Women Harriet Harman said: ‘I just don’t believe women are less committed, less hard-working or less able than men. So they shouldn’t be paid less. The gender pay gap has fallen from 17% to 12% in the last ten years, and there will be some tough measures in the new Equality Bill which will come out later this year, to cut it even further.’

Campaigns officer at the Fawcett Society Kat Banyard said: ‘The gender pay gap is a national scandal. At every level in UK workplaces women are being paid less than men. The paucity of senior flexible roles and long working hours culture shuts women out of the boardroom and forces then into lower paid, lower status jobs when they have children.

‘This Government has an historic opportunity to end pay discrimination with preventative and remedial measures in the Single Equality Act. As a basic first step to rooting out inequality, all companies should be required to conduct pay audits. UK women cannot afford to wait any longer. We need action from Government now.’

Tables:
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Age	Full-time pay for men	Full-time pay for women	Part-time pay for women	Full-time gender pay gap	Part-time gender pay gap
16-17	£4.75	£5.21	£5.14	-9.7%	-8.2%
18-21	£7.28	£6.96	£6.96	4.4%	11.54%
22-29	£11.08	£10.72	£8.49	3.3%	23.4%
30-39	£15.64	£13.89	£10.70	11.2%	31.6%
40-49	£17.35	£13.39	£10.21	22.8%	41.2%
50-59	£16.22	£12.88	£9.89	20.6%	39.0%
60+	£13.36	£11.45	£8.90	14.3%	33.4%

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	Bottom quintile	Second quintile	Third quintile	Fourth quintile	Top quintile	Population (thousands)
Women	27	25	21	16	11	23003
Men	13	14	19	24	30	21524
All adults	20	20	20	20	20	44528

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Closing the Gender Pay Gap:
An update report for TUC Women’s Conference 2008

Introduction

This report uses official data and recent research into the gender pay gap to examine the position of women within the labour market and the causes of the continuing pay inequity they experience.

The report shows that, while the pay gap experienced by women continues to narrow, with the full time pay gap now at 17.2% and the part time pay gap at 35.6%, the underlying causes of the pay gap persist. Undervaluation of women’s work, a persistent employment penalty for mothers, occupational gender segregation, and discriminatory treatment in the workplace continue to hamper efforts to further reduce the pay gap.

The interconnectedness of part-time work, occupational gender segregation and the onset of family responsibilities hits women in the UK particularly hard – they experience a larger pay gap than many other women in Europe. The UK pay gap is a third higher than the EU average.

Unequal pay doesn’t just hurt women – this report also highlights the cost of women’s unequal pay for everyone, with strong links between the gender pay gap and child poverty, skills shortages and a cost to the economy of the under-utilisation of women’s skills in excess of £11bn a year.

The findings of this report emphasise the critical need to tackle the penalties paid by part-time workers and mothers as well as for widespread cultural change to challenge the undervaluation of women’s work.

You can download a full copy of this report at http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/genderpayreport08.pdf