British Prime Minister Theresa May has penned a pledge in a British newspaper to eradicate pay inequality between men and women in Britain, as the April 4 midnight deadline for companies employing more than 250 staff to report on payment levels has arrived.
Many large firms have reportedly waited until right up until the deadline to report the levels of income inequality among their employees. According to the figures, women earn an average of 15 percent less per hour than men. 14 percent of firms reporting so far claim to have paid their female employees more than men, with 8 percent claiming that no such pay-gap exists.
.@theresa_may: It is our job to make sure that it doesn't take another 100 years for the gender pay gap to become a thing of the past pic.twitter.com/wOPExVJg6N
— CCHQ Press Office (@CCHQPress) April 4, 2018
Calling the figures behind the issue "disturbing reading" and a "burning injustice," the Prime Minister likened inequality in workplace pay to other historic forms of injustice including denial of women's suffrage which "held too many women back."
The gender-pay gap is defined as the difference in average earnings for the same amount of work between male and female employees working in the same role.
On March 23 Britain's Trade Union Congress published its own research detailing what it concluded was the progression of the gender pay gap throughout women's working lives. According to the research, the gap is at its widest when women reach the age of 50, earning on average nearly $US12,000 (£8,420) relative to their male counterparts of the same age.
