"Women in UK still far adrift on salary and promotion as gender pay gap remains a gulf", 23 Aug 2016

Women earn 18% less than men on average, according to new research that highlights the challenge facing Theresa May in closing Britain’s stubbornly wide gender pay gap. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) also found that the gap balloons after women have children, raising the prospect that mothers are missing out on pay rises and promotions. That is echoed by a separate report on Tuesday suggesting that male managers are 40% more likely than female managers to be promoted. May highlighted the gulf between men’s and women’s earnings in her first statement as prime minister when she vowed to create a “Britain that works for everyone”. But underscoring the struggle her government will face in closing the gender pay gap, the IFS study hints at an entrenched penalty for those women who have children. The pay gap widens consistently for 12 years after a first child is born, by which point women receive 33% less pay an hour than men, according to the research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. More than four decades after the Equal Pay Act, there is some encouraging news in the report. The current 18% gap in hourly wages is down from 23% in 2003 and 28% in 1993, the IFS notes.