1. Why does gender pay and economic opportunity matter? The Gender Pay Gap in the UK report, based on the annual survey of hours and earnings, compares average hourly earnings of men and women. The gender pay gap for full-time UK employees in 2018 was 8.6% which increased to 17.9% when part-time employment was included, due to more women working in part-time lower-paid employment (ONS, 2018).

The relation between pay and gender is structurally located in the segregation of much of the work done by men and women. The concentration of men and women in different sectors in the economy such as manufacturing, services or finance is known as horizontal gender segregation, while work at different levels within organizations is known as vertical gender segregation. The concentration of women in certain types of work such as nursing, child minding, hairdressing and beauty therapy (where they comprise over 90% of employees) and their lower representation in management and professions makes it difficult for women to find male comparators in order to make the case for gender discrimination in pay. The measurement of work to establish where there is equivalence between work done by women and that performed by men has provided a possible basis for women to claim equal pay for equal work and compensation for past pay discrimination