International Equal Pay Day takes place on 18 September each year. It was founded in the US in 2019 by The Equal Pay International Coalition, to raise awareness of unequal pay for women and subsequently women of colour. Their goal is to end pay gap discrimination.
It builds on the United Nations’ commitment to human rights and the fight against all forms of discrimination, including discrimination against women and girls. The roots of this day began in an American holiday called National Equal Pay Day, which was founded in 1996 to raise awareness of the ongoing gender pay gap.
In the UK in 1970 a piece of legislation called the Equal Pay Act stated that, by law, men and women must get equal pay for doing ‘equal work’. Later included in the Equality Act 2010, this encompasses work that equal pay law classes as “the same, similar, equivalent or of equal value”. This means that someone must not get paid less compared to someone who is both:
- The opposite sex
- Doing equal work for the same employer
University of Bath, as per government guidelines, reports on the Gender Pay Gap in March of each year. In 2022 the median pay gap here at Bath decreased by 0.17%.
Within our Statement of Equality Objectives we have made a clear commit to review equality of pay for underrepresented groups, as well as continuing to reduce the gender pay gap by using our annual reporting and action plan to make positive progress in this space. We will continue to address gender pay gap disparities through pro-active intervention.
Read more about our current action plan in the March 2022 Action plan, Reducing the Gap.
Respond