Women's pay still much lower than men's, new study finds

The amount of money women employees get paid hourly is still considerably lower than that of men, a new study has found.
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Research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, called ‘The Gender Wage Gap Study’, has found that the hourly wages of female employees are currently about 18 per cent lower than men’s on average.

Alarmimgly, the wage gap widens even more once women have children, the study says.

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The research states: “There is, on average, a gap of over ten per cent even before the arrival of the first child. But this gap is fairly stable until the child arrives and is small relative to what follows. There is then a gradual but continual rise in the wage gap and, by the time the first child is aged 12, women’s hourly wages are a third below men’s.”

The study also says the gender wage gap widens gradually but significantly from the late 20s and early 30s as men’s wages tend to continue growing rapidly at this point in the life cycle (particularly for the high-educated), while

women’s wages plateau.

The findings say that the hourly wages for women who subsequently return to paid work are, on average, about two per cent lower for each year that they have taken out of employment in the interim.

“This relationship is stronger, at four per cent per year, for women with at least A-level qualifications,” We do not see such a relationship for the lowest-educated women, which is likely because they have less wage progression to miss

out on or fewer skills to depreciate.”