Is the pandemic exacerbating the gender pay gap?

Research from the Equality Trust suggests it will take until 2162 to close the gap – but the problem may be worse than it seems, explains James Moore

Progress on closing the gender pay gap has been glacially slow (REX)

The Equality Trust today issues a timely reminder that while mandatory gender pay gap reporting might have been suspended by the government as a result of the pandemic, the problem hasn’t gone away.

Just over half of the companies that took part in last year’s exercise reported this year, so the Trust was still able to look at how much progress employers have made towards narrowing the gap.

The answer is, as you’ve probably guessed, not much. The average gender pay gap has declined only marginally, by 1.4 per cent, since 2017. Over the past year it fell by just 0.5 per cent.