Why has the Equal Pay (and Amendment) Act not resulted in equal pay in the UK?
15th January 2007
WORD COUNT: 1497
1.0 Introduction
The Equal Pay Act of 1970 was originally formulated in response to Article 141 of the EU treaty which stated that ?Each member state shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for work of equal value is applied.' This piece of legislation, which was later amended in 1983, was intended to remedy the vast gender pay difference, allowing an individual right to the same contractual pay, benefits and conditions of employment to that of the opposite sex. This is based upon a man and a woman doing like work, work rated as equivalent or work of equal value under the same employer (Torrington, Hall and Taylor 2005).
At the time of implementation in 1975, women in the UK were found to be earning 63% of what men were earning, which subsequently has been further reduced, more predominately in the following two decades by 20%. Regardless of any pattern of convergence the gender pay gap has remained at around this level and in 2004 an Office for National Statistics calculated the difference to be 19%.
Furthermore, research conducted by Payfinder.com, a company which compares salaries found that the difference in pay between the sexes was particularly vast in the South East with a 30% difference, 29% in Scotland, 23% in Wales and 26% in the eastern parts of England.
2.0 Factors causing an unequal gender pay gap in the UK
Human Capital
According to research findings into the gender pay gap by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), the argument of many economists as to why there is still a substantial pay gap between the genders is that of an individual's acquir ...