THE TUC is marking Women’s Pay Day today by calling for this generation of women to be the last to suffer pay inequality.

The union federation said the current gap stands at 14.3 per cent, meaning the average woman effectively works for free for nearly two months of the year — up till today — compared with the average man.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “It’s shameful that working women don’t have pay parity in 2024. We can’t consign yet another generation of women to pay inequality.

“It’s clear that just publishing gender pay gaps isn’t working. Companies must be required to publish and implement action plans to close their pay gaps. And bosses who don’t comply with the law should be fined.”

The TUC’s analysis found that the pay gap persists even in jobs dominated by female workers — in education, it is 21.3 per cent and in healthcare and social work, it is 12.6 per cent.

The worst sector was finance and insurance with a staggering 27.9 per cent pay gap.

The worst regional pay gap was in south-east England at 18.9 per cent, followed by the east of England and east Midlands.

At current rates of progress it will take 20 years to close the gender pay gap, the report warned.

It also found the gender pay gap is widest for middle-aged and older women: at 17 per cent for women in their 40s; 19.7 per cent for those in their 50s; and 18.1 per cent for women above 60.

Fawcett Society chief Jemima Olchawski said employers and the government need to take “urgent and effective action” to close the gender pay gap.

“There are so many policy interventions that could turn the dial but the simplest of them all is making flexible work the default,” she added.

“A lack of genuinely flexible quality work traps women in roles below their capabilities and encourages the notion that flexible work is a privilege, not an essential part of a modern economy.

“We also need to see an end to employers asking discriminatory salary history questions. We know that this bakes in gender, race and disability inequality.”

Labour has pledged to introduce flexible working and fair pay agreements to boost pay and conditions in social care as well as mandatory action plans to close the gender pay gap and extend reporting to disability and ethnicity pay gaps.