Women in Northamptonshire are working for NOTHING from now until 2023

Women living across Northamptonshire will effectively work months for free this year due to the gender pay gap, figures suggest.

Women's rights charity the Fawcett Society said progress in reducing the gender pay gap is too slow and it called on Government to introduce measures to help women into higher-paying work, especially during the cost-of-living crisis.

Office for National Statistics estimates full-time female workers in West Northamptonshire earned an average of £17.09 per hour excluding overtime as of April, while their male peers earned £20.58 – a gap of 17 percent — so, by the end of the year, women will have effectively worked without pay since October 30. In North Northamptonshire women earned an average of £16.17 per hour while their male peers earned £18.46 – a gap of 12.4 percent — which means that by the end of 2022 they will have effectively worked for nothing since November 16.

Across the UK, the full-time female workforce is paid an average £18.09 an hour – 11.3 percent less than the men’s average £20.04. Hourly figures are used to discount overtime.

This year’s Equal Pay Day falls on Sunday (November 20) – after which women across the country effectively stop earning relative to men – and the Fawcett Society says the rising cost of living means raising awareness of the pay gap is vital.

Jemima Olchawski chief executive said: “Progress on tackling the gender pay gap is too slow and evidence continues to stack up that women want to see more being done.

“In the context of labour market shortages and the cost-of-living crisis, we really can’t afford not to act. We urgently need action from both the government and employers."

The gender pay gap is the estimated difference between the average hourly wage for men and women across all jobs and is different from the concept of equal pay, which means men and women doing the same job are paid the same.

For part-time workers across the country, the gender pay gap was 0.2 percent last year. In West Northamptonshire women earned 0.3 percent more than men in part-time roles while in North Northants they earned 2.7 percent more.

Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the Women’s Budget Group, told The Independent: “The gender pay gap reflects the different positions of women and men in the economy, and the fact that women are over-represented in lower paid sectors such as childcare and social care and underrepresented in the highest earning sectors.

“At the same time, because childcare and social care are stretched and under-funded, women are working less or not at all because they can’t make numbers add up. This means the gender earnings gap in annual pay is even larger at 30.8 percent.”

The Fawcett Society also called on the Government to make flexible working available to all to help more women and mothers into work. It said employers should also stop asking "discriminatory" wage history questions and publish salary bands on job adverts.

The Government's Equality Hub said the overall trend of the national gender pay gap has decreased over time since 1997. A spokesperson added that the Government has introduced legislation for the right to flexible working, shared parental leave and pay, and doubling free childcare.