men more than women. However, three years later, there appears to be no improvement in this area, prompting warnings that women face a bleak economic picture in 2022.
According to an analysis conducted by the Guardian, eight out of 10 companies continued to pay men more than women. In terms of the median hourly rate offered to women, it was 10.2 per cent less than their male colleagues, almost a percentage point higher than the 9.3 per cent gap recorded in 2018. The situation remained particularly disappointing in the public sector, where the pay gap grew from 14.4 per cent in 2018 to 15.5 per cent in 2021, while in the private sector, it grew from 8 per cent to 9 per cent.
The numbers have triggered fears that long-term economic gains made by women could go into reverse if ministers fail to act on the matter.
“The danger we face is not only a widening of the gender pay gap but a more general widening of wealth and income between men and women,” Sara Reis, head of research and policy at the Women’s Budget Group, said. “There is a real risk that all the employment gains of the last decades are being put in jeopardy if women continue to be disproportionately impacted by this pandemic.”
