UK Women Set To Earn More Than Men By 2020
Please note that we are not authorised to provide any investment advice. The content on this page is for information purposes only.
The average pay of a woman in the United Kingdom will overtake that of a male worker within the decade if current trends in the labour market continue, showed the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday.
British women in their 20s already earn 3.6 percent more than men of the same age on average, while the overall gender pay gap within the country has shrunk by less than 10 percent for the first time.
The average pay of a woman in the United Kingdom will overtake that of a male worker within the decade if current trends in the labour market continue, showed the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday.
British women in their 20s already earn 3.6 percent more than men of the same age on average, while the overall gender pay gap within the country has shrunk by less than 10 percent for the first time.
Related: Women At Work: Moving Towards Parity
Related: Infographic: Women Are Finally Taking Over
Damagingly for females, the figures also reveal that while younger women earn more than men of the same age, the situation changes dramatically in their 30s as women lose the edge when they start families.
By the time women are between 40 and 49, men of the same age working full time are paid £15.14 per hour with women only earning approximately £12.77.
However, the latest trend of course shows that women in full-time work are seeing their wages grow at more than twice the rate of men. If the growth continues at current levels, women could start to earn more than men in 2020, over 50 years ahead of some recent forecasts. On the current trajectory, an average woman will earn £14.09 an hour in 2020, compared to £14.06 for a man.
Jill Kirby, a family expert and author of The Price of Parenthood, told the Daily Mail that the figures showed that the current pay gap between the sexes had ‘nothing to do with discrimination’.
“It is the fact that women become less committed to the workplace at the point in their lives when they have children. They want to spend more time with their children, and regard lower pay as a trade-off for family time.”
“The pay gap we should be worrying about is the one that shows young men in their 20s falling behind,” she added.
The figures from the ONS showed how radically the situation has changed in the past 14 years as young women have become better educated and motivated.
In 1997, men in their 20s earned 5.9 percent more than women of the same age; but in 2005, women in the same age group earned more for the first time – their pay was 0.5 percent higher than men’s.
After that, there were only minor fluctuations in the gap, until the current figure of 3.6 percent.
Economists and union leaders have welcomed the shrinking gender gap, especially after a report made by the Chartered Management Institute last year suggested that it would be another 50 years before women’s take-home pay is equal to men’s.
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, told The Telegraph that the figures show that “things are moving in the right direction in closing the underlying pay gap between men and women”.
Related: The Economics of Women in the Workplace
Related: He-cession: The Recession is an Economic Crisis for Men
Archer warned though that much work remains to be done.
“The suspicion remains that achieving pay parity between the genders will be a long and tortuous process,” he said.
