Why are we so complacent about the pay gap?

Sixty more years to wait until women will get equal pay… we all know it, so why aren’t we outraged?
Portrait of business people sitting in office
Not fair: the pay gap is bad not just for women but for the whole economy. Photograph: Alamy

I really do mind the gap.

Imagine this: you’re selling something on eBay. Let’s say it’s an old sofa. The winning bidder seals the deal at £100. Only when he comes to pick it up he tells you it’s going to have to be £80, because he’s just noticed you’re a woman. You’d tell him to get lost, right? We all would. So why do we treat the employers who purchase our services differently? Why are we so complacent about the 20% pay gap between men and women?

This month it was revealed that women still have 60 years to wait for equal pay. The Office for National Statistics figures show that women earn 19.7% less than men. Tempting as it is to ruminate upon how I’ll spend my wage hike when I’m 96 (perhaps a new bath chair or stairlift?) I’ve got a question about the present first, and it’s this: we have to wait A HUNDRED YEARS for the 1970 Equal Pay Act to work? Are you on GLUE?

The pay gap isn’t just bad for women, it’s bad for the entire economy. Oxfam’s G20 and Gender Equality report estimates that if women’s paid employment rates were the same as men’s, the Eurozone’s GDP would increase by 13%. The TUC says women earn £5,000 a year less than men and the CBI is so concerned it has demanded that the next government commit to setting a national target to tackle the problem. Strange, then, that equal pay isn’t a more common topic of ordinary political conversation. It should be up there with the headline-grabbers: jobs, immigration, education and the NHS. Why isn’t it?

Partly because some people deny that there’s a problem, or mis-categorise it as a “women’s issue”. The pay gap is invisible to The Men Who Run Things because they don’t experience it. Younger women, for whom the gap is negligible, may be skeptical for similar reasons. The evidence shows that it is real, however, and that these women will be left behind later, in the chaotic slipstream of their childbearing years.

Most insidiously of all, the reason we don’t get het up is that we all agree it’s unfair. This creates the collective misassumption that it has been dealt with – the popular shift in attitude has fixed it. But despite what the internet would have you believe, noting your feelings on a subject isn’t actually doing something about it. An “unlike” is not a change in the status quo, much less the law.

Speaking of legislation, what are the people who do that sort of thing doing about this? The “female vote” (I know, I know, sorry) is notoriously covetable and with an election upon us Labour have hinted that they will resurrect their Equality Act 2010 as a central part of their 2015 manifesto. The Lib Dems have promised to shame businesses into action with a commitment to require businesses employing over 250 people to publish information on their gender pay gaps. Meanwhile the Conservatives have highlighted the introduction of shared parental leave as a step in the right direction but gone no further, yet.

They should. The major parties must all commit to closing the pay gap completely, with action on wages, flexible working and equal opportunities in the workplace. At worst the resultant photo opps would make a refreshing change from the unconvincing hard hat ’n’ hi-vis poses politicians usually have to strike when they announce an economy-boosting initiative (blue sky idea: a shot of George Osborne and a bevy of female orthodontists affix gap-busting braces to the teeth of the female employees of the future!). At best it could make Britain richer and fairer. How often do you get to kill both those birds (ahem) with one stone? Follow Lauren on Twitter @LaurenLaverne