women in their 40s have the biggest gender pay gap

[aubergineinautumn]

here is something i found on TUC site when researching the strikes.

the headline is v misleading

and the huge pay gap for the over 40s kind of kills the often rolled out argument that it is only childbearing women who suffer a pay gap

You need to look further into the figures - women who have taken time out to look after children will be at a massive disadvantage, even in their 50s.

Even if they never had children that perceived reproductive potential will affect their opportunities when younger, leading to lower pay later in their career.

Oh, probably. But lots of people seem to be in denial that this kind of direct discrimination happen at all.

Even if someone takes 5 years out in their 20s or 30s surely they should have caught up by their 50s?

Nope, they won't ever catch up.

If you assume, say, a 5% annual pay rise, and that the woman was earning £25,000 when she took five years out, when she comes back, a colleague who had been at the same level will now be earning almost £32,000, and she would be very lucky to be able to get a job paying £25,000, as her skills are five years out of date.

That ignores the likelihood that her colleague will actually have moved to a more senior position elsewhere.

If the woman has a partner, at the end of the five year career break, he will probably be earning more than her - so his career will take precedence when deciding where to live, who will take time off work for caring duties, who will be able to travel for work, who can commute.... So she gets stuck on a different track, one where she has more balls to juggle, and gets less recognition for it.

Women really need to be aware of these figures when deciding about maternity leave/returning after.

They always use the fact that women might have had say, 18 months to 4 years out of the workplace, to justify the fact that they are 30 years behind men by the time they retire.

When men take time out of the workplace, to travel, to study, to set up their own business and fail, to act, to tour with their band etc., they always catch up. When they retire, they're not 20 to 30 years behind their peers.

Funny that.

Exactly, ER, lots of people take time out in their 20s to either travel, do voluntary work, are unemployed, change careers but they always catch up unlike maternity leavers. It's victim blaming all over again.