Gender pay gap report. Joe Giddens PA Wire/PA Images. All rights reserved.The Resolution Foundation has released findings which suggest that having children carries a “sharp and long-lasting” pay penalty, whilst more recent generations have closed the gap to just 5%.
Focusing on the more recent generations during their 20s, the think tank found that the gender pay gap fell from an average of 16% for baby boomers, to 9% for women in generation X, and then nearly halved in a generation to just 5% for millennials. This progress reflects a number of welcome trends in equalities legislation, maternity rights and welfare support, and higher education participation leading to more women breaking into high-paying occupations, and importantly, staying in them.
In contrast, women in the workforce in their 30s and early 40s face big increases in the pay gap, suggesting that women taking time out to have children still face exclusion from the labour market experience. Worryingly, this increase in the gender pay gap isn’t a short term phenomenon attached only to childbirth – it continues for decades. This is known as the ‘lifetime earnings penalty’.
