Gender pay gap widens with 16% difference between highest earning men and women

THE gender pay gap has widened this year, official figures show.

By April there was an 8.3 per cent difference between male and female average earnings.

That was up from 7.7 per cent last year but down from nine per cent in 2019 before the Covid pandemic heavily impacted the labour market.

David Freeman, of the Office for National Statistics, said: “The gender pay gap is now some way below where it was before the pandemic.

“Although it’s up on the last two years, those figures were distorted by the effects of Covid-19, so it’s better to look at longer-term trends.”

The gap is particularly stark for older members of the workforce.

Full-time workers aged between 40 and 49 had a 10.9 per cent pay gap, compared with 3.2 per cent or less for those under 40.

The data also highlighted that the highest-earning male employees still got significantly more than the equivalent female.

There was a 15.5 per cent disparity among high earners, while there was a three per cent gap among the lowest paid. The largest pay gap was in the South East — 12.5 per cent in favour of male workers.