Fair pay is a sign of a healthy economy, so the widening of the gender pay gap reported by the Office for National Statistics last week is a sign that something is going wrong.
The ONS annual survey of hours and earnings revealed that in 2013 the gender pay gap increased to 10 per cent – an average of £97.20 – from 9.6 per cent in 2012.
This is the first increase in the pay gap for five years.
The introduction of the minimum wage lifted a million women out of poverty. The campaign for a living wage is a vital next step. Where in the past campaigns for a family wage have excluded women and the families they are responsible for, the modern campaign for a living wage gives a voice to cleaners and secretaries alongside bin collectors and security guards – a movement we can all get behind.
It breaks my heart when I speak to women in my ward, young and old, who badly want careers rather than just jobs, but are only offered access to training without childcare, or cannot get the work experience they need in schools or the NHS to secure their qualifications. BAME women are more likely to be trapped in low-paid work than white sisters, with Bangladeshi and Somali women having the highest rates of unemployment and low pay. Local government should commission employment and skills services locally – we know our communities and our local labour markets, and we can develop the access-to-work services that are needed, alongside the in-work training and advice that will help women and men succeed.
When women and men share parenting, elder care, house work and paid work according to what is right for their family rather than according to gender, we might finally achieve equal pay. It was a Labour government that extended parental leave for women and men, and a Labour government that introduced a right to request flexible working. The coalition’s extension of each of these principles is right; we must go further.
Equal pay audits are a tool that is proven to work. Not enough private sector employers have done one, often because of fear of what they might find. A Labour government could change that.
The pay gap is wider in sectors with high pay – in the finance sector there is a median gender pay gap of £287.50 per week. Equal pay is a key indicator of whether we are succeeding in rebuilding a stable economy – inequality is greater in sectors where checks and balances have broken down.
Women are overrepresented in sectors with the lowest pay. This is getting worse, as jobs held by women in the public sector are being cut, and women are moving into insecure low-paid jobs in the private sector. The lowest-paid apprenticeships, such as hairdressing, are dominated by women, with the apprenticeships that offer skilled jobs with bright futures, such as engineering, are overwhelmingly taken by men. With more than half of those in poverty in the UK now in work, tackling poverty is a feminist issue.
Complacency is not an option when it comes to equal pay, and the widening of the gender pay gap is a symptom of underlying challenges. We need an economy that works for women and families, and policy solutions that give families and communities the flexibility they need.
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Rachael Saunders works for Opportunity Now, the gender equality campaign from Business in the Community, and is the deputy leader of Tower Hamlets Labour group. She writes in a personal capacity. She tweets @RachaelSaunders
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Photo: Todd Stadler