No job for a lady

Women across the UK have now received their final pay slip of the year. From here on in, we're working for free.

According to the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equal pay, October 30 was the date when women start working for free, if comparing male and female salaries on a like-for-like basis.

October 30 has been a significant date for women for over half a century.

On that date in 1957, the House of Lords finally announced plans to allow women life peerages. Up until then, it was a closed shop to Ladies.

Of course this isn't the only role that was blocked - it took until 1976 years before the then 25-year-old Mary Langdon made history as the first female firefighter in Britain.

And it wasn't until 2007 that 42-year-old Moira Cameron became the Tower of London's first female beefeater. Tellingly, she was back in the headlines recently when a campaign of bullying from male colleagues was exposed.

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No girls allowed
There are some roles that women still aren't permitted to pursue: female soldiers in the British Army are not permitted to serve on the front line, nor are women allowed to serve as Marines in the British Navy.

The ban doesn't just cover combat positions. In 1999, former Army cook Angela Sirdar was turned down for a catering position with the Marines.

The decision was upheld at a tribunal despite her backers, the Equal Opportunities Commission, producing an overweight male chef who had failed eight physical examinations and had been allowed a position with the marines for 20 years.

Mind the gap
It's not just which jobs you can do, either. the jobs According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) the gap in comparable pay between men and women is significant and widening.

The gap is measured by the median hourly pay of full-time employees, which does not take into account overtime.

The median hourly rate for men in 2008 was £12.50, up 4.4% from the previous year, but the median rate for women was £10.91 and had only risen 4.1% in the same time.

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The law on pay difference
Since 1970, it has been illegal for employers to pay women less than a man in the same role, however employment contracts often stipulate that employees are not permitted to discuss their salary with colleagues, leaving it difficult for those not in 'banded' salaried positions to find out if their pay is equal.

The Equal Pay Act covers other terms and conditions including bonus payments, sick leave and holiday entitlement.

When the law was passed, the pay gap between men and women was 37%. Some 39 years later, according to the Government Equalities Office, the gap stands at 21%.

The Fawcett Society claims it will take around 140 years to close the gap.

So why the difference?
At school, girls continually out-perform boys, from SATs through to A-Levels. According to the ONS, in 2005/2006, 64% of girls in their final school year achieved five or more GCSE grades A* to C. The equivalent figure for boys was just 54%.

So why are our brainy young girls becoming poorly-paid women? Some explanation may lie in the subjects they choose to study.

Of the vocational qualifications studied, men opted for construction, planning and the built environment, whereas women are more likely to study health, public services and care-related subjects. According to the ONS, 86% of awards in these subjects go to women.

The care sector is notoriously badly paid: the Royal College of Nursing has the minimum starting salary for a registered nurse at just £20,710.

Observers also suggest that the credit crunch then recession pushed more women back into the world of low-paid full-time work, to either bolster the family income or replace a wage following redundancy.

Family friendly working
It is possible for women to combine a challenging, well-paid career with children, but it takes a combination of flexible employer and the confidence to request new ways of working.

The law gives working parents and guardians the statutory right to request flexible ways of working.

There are some limits: parents must be responsible for a child under 16 (or 18 if in receipt of Disability Living Allowance). Only employees can apply, although not if they serve in the armed forces, and they must have worked for 26 weeks continuously before making an application.

The law requires employers to properly consider all eligible applications and only reject it if there are sound business reasons. There is no guaranteed right to flexible working, but being open to it can help employers retain staff, particularly female staff.

Gillian Nissim, founder of www.workingmums.co.uk, said: "Employers are increasingly looking at new ways of recruiting and retaining talented employees and flexible working consistently tops polls of what employees want from their work."

She explains that women make up the majority of graduates leaving university. Many of these women will go on to start families, after building up years of insight and experience in their companies.

"Employers don't want to lose that experience and the most forward-thinking understand that opening up all levels of jobs to flexible working represents a win-win situation for everyone," said Nissim.

"There is still a long way to go, however, particularly in terms of the more senior roles.

"For too long flexible work has been equated with part-time work and downgraded. Women in this situation can often feel that they are wasting their experience doing jobs that are way below their capabilities."

Why the system is failing women