Equal Pay Day - Closing the gender pay gap

Equal Pay Day - Closing the gender pay gap


The end of last week saw Equal Pay Day in the UK – the day on which women, in effect, allegedly “stop being paid” for the year because of the gender pay gap. And the day did not go unmarked. Maria Miller, women and equalities minister, has written to all Cabinet ministers asking them to ensure that their departments publish their own gender equality information, to encourage more companies to take voluntary action to tackle the gender pay gap. 130 large employers have now signed up to the voluntary Think, Act, Report code which encourages the publication of gender equality data. At the same time, Ms Miller has urged companies to promote more women on to boards, as the target of women making up 25% of all boardroom seats by 2015 (set two years ago in the Davies Report) rapidly approaches, whilst at the same time the percentage of new appointments given to women appears to have slowed.

It is interesting to remember that when the Equality Act was drafted, section 78 provided that regulations may require employers to publish information relating to the pay of employees for the purpose of showing whether there were any pay differences between male and female employees. However, the coalition government has not used this section, preferring instead to develop a voluntary approach to gender pay reporting. The marking of Equal Pay Day has reignited the debate as to whether voluntary action is working, or whether the government needs to trigger section 78 in order to force transparency, and consequently, change.