Half of women working in the South West earn less than the Living Wage
Half of all women working in the South West earn less than the Living Wage, according to new research by Fair Play South West.
The gender equality organisation supported by Equality South West has analysed provisional data from the Office of National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, and learned that while just 19% of men in the South West earn less than £7.45 per hour, the figure for women is 47%.
Jackie Longworth, Chair of Fair Play South West, said: "Women workers suffer from the double whammy that they earn less per hour than men and they work fewer paid hours per week due to caring responsibilities. If the government was serious about making work pay, instead of cutting benefits it should help hard-pressed working women find better-paid jobs to lift them out of benefit dependency. The figure explains why many working women are also on benefits, and busts the myth that all benefit claimants are out-of-work scroungers."
Jackie Longworth is today (Wednesday) addressing a 'Gender and Austerity' seminar at the University of the West of England, organised by the Centre for Employment Studies Research, where she will list four steps the government could take to alleviate the problem:
i) subsidise and provide more good quality flexible childcare
ii) create more well-paid, flexible jobs in accessible places for women
iii) raise the National Minimum Wage (£6.19 per hour) to at least the Living Wage {£7.45 per hour)
iv) reduce jobs stereotyping so women are not steered into low-paid, low-skill sectors of the economy
She said: "Working women have been hit hardest by the austerity policies of the government as pay has not kept up with inflation and their benefits have actually gone down. So poor women and their children are poorer whilst wealthy government ministers and bankers have yet more tax breaks”.
