UK told to close gender gap, boost women’s pay

Chloe Lamb -

Britain will fail to close the pay gap between men and women within a generation as promised without more flexible working, paternal leave, and encouraging women aged over 40 back to work, a parliamentary committee said on Tuesday.

Figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics show on average women earned about 18 per cent less than men in Britain in 2016.

Chairwoman of the Women and Equalities Committee, Maria Miller, called on the government to act on recommendations made by the committee last March in order to meet a government pledge to end the gender pay gap within a generation.

The committee called for fathers to be granted three months’ paid leave to help with childcare, for mothers to be encouraged to return to work after time out, and for all jobs to be made flexible unless there was a business case against doing so.

“It is deeply disappointing that our recommendations have not been taken on board by the government,” Miller, a lawmaker with the ruling Conservative government, said in a statement.

A government spokesperson said Britain was committed to tackling its gender pay gap, which was the lowest on record.

“That’s why we are requiring employers to publish their gender pay and gender bonus gap for the first time from April and we are giving working parents of three and four year olds up to 30 hours of free childcare from September.”

A survey of more than 9,500 working women in G20 nations by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2015 found that four in every 10 women saw the gender pay gap as a key issue, with women in France, Germany and the United States most concerned.

Women in Britain, Australia, Brazil, and Canada also ranked the gender pay gap as their biggest workplace worry.

Miller said the government’s response to the committee’s report last year recognised the business case for reducing the pay gap with women making up 47 per cent of the workforce.

She said the government rejected the bulk of the committee’s 17 recommendations and maintained current policies on shared parental leave and flexible working were adequate. “My committee will continue to pursue action to reduce gender pay gap, starting by questioning Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening).”

Greening will be questioned by the committee on April 26.

— Thomson Reuters Foundation