Women see bigger pay increases in 2010 but more likely to work part time
The gender pay gap in the United Kingdom has narrowed as women have seen bigger pay increases in 2010, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The gap between the median pay of men and women working full time is now 10.2 per cent, down from 12.2 per cent last year, which is the biggest drop since figures were first tracked in 1997.
In April, the U.K. workforce was made up of 12.7 million men and 12.3 million women. However, men were more likely to work full time than women (88 per cent of men compared to 58 per cent of women).
While women tended to have lower hourly rates of pay in general, overall the gender pay gap has narrowed.
That is mainly because full-time men's median earnings were up 1.3 per cent to £538 a week, but for women working full-time the figure rose by 3.1 per cent to £439.
The results continue the pattern of the gender pay gap narrowing over recent years, according to ONS. When the national statistics agency first began tracking the gap in 1997, the gender pay gap in median earnings for full-timers was around 17 per cent.
