“How much longer do women have to wait?”

UNISON is urging the government to call time on pay discrimination after new research has revealed women in their 40s earn 20% less than men. It is 30 years since equal pay became the law of the land – how much longer do women have to wait?   The latest analysis of the gender pay gap from the Office for National Statistics shows that pay differences peak for fulltime women workers aged between 40 and 49.  Their pay gap of 20.3% compared with one of just 1% for women in their 20s.  Researchers found that men and women earn a similar amount when they first start work, at 18 to 21 years old, but a gender pay gap starts appearing after about 10 years and gets wider still as women get older.