Yes, OK, we know that a group of women like the Fawcett Society is going to have to find something to complain about. Eve did, after all, whinge her way out of Paradise. But we’d all hope they could do better than support Barbie’s stereotype that math is hard. Sadly not though:
Progress on closing the gender pay gap is “dismally slow”, according to equality charity the Fawcett Society.
At the current rate of decline it will take 60 years to eradicate the gap, the charity said.
Well, actually, no.
But for people under 40, the gap for full-time employees was close to zero.
Meaning that it’ll take, oooh, 27 years to close that gender pay gap. Given that the current retirement age is 67….
From the ONS, the source of these numbers:
The reason for the difference across age groups?
Women over 40 are more likely to work in lower-paid occupations and, compared with younger women, are less likely to work as managers, directors or senior officials, the ONS said.
OK, so we used to have self segregation by gender in working patterns. Among those under 40 this no longer happens. Therefore, we’ve solved the gender pay gap. All we’ve got to do now is for those who did self segregate to age out of the workforce.
We’re done.
But of course if the Fawcett Society is going to carry on being Barbie then they’ll never grasp the simple maths of this, will they?
It’s particularly shaming when one recalls that Phillipa Fawcett was “ranked above the Senior Wrangler” in her final year reading Maths at Cambridge.