It’s International Women’s Day on Saturday March 8th, and while the papers are full of heart-warming tales of high-fliers who have managed to have it all – career, marriage, children, ‘me time’ – the fact remains that, for most women, it hasn’t quite worked out that way.
And Opportunity Now, part of Business in the Community (BITC), has published the figures to prove it. Some food for thought:
• 50% of women working in low-paid part-time jobs are working beneath their potential
• Two-thirds of the half a million women in the UK qualified in science, engineering or technology do not work in those sectors
• 44,013 equal pay claims were brought between April 2006 and April 2007
• The UK has the largest pay gap (between men and women) in the EU
• A woman in the UK earns 82.8p for every pound that a man earns (the equivalent to working every November and December every year for free)
• A woman working part-time earns 64.4p for every pound paid to the average man
• 28,153 sex discrimination claims were brought between April 2006 and April 2007
• 30,000 UK women leave their jobs each year due to pregnancy discrimination
• In the UK, fathers in two-parent families carry out an average of one-quarter of the family’s childcare-related activities during the week, and one-third at weekends
And finally,
• Women currently spend twice as much time on housework and on childcare as men.
Happy International Women’s Day …
