Statistics show that women are paid roughly £1.44 less than men in the hourly rate. This has gone down by 4p since 2021. The government is not doing much to help women with energy bills, which can be challenging for some single women to pay for with the soaring inflation. The government is not doing much to help women with their bills; as men get paid more, they have more to spend on them. By the government not increasing the pay for women it shows that men are still seen as better than women in the eyes of the government.

With the pay gap per hour being about 13% less for women than men, if they work for 10 hours, they get paid £14.40 less than men which over time equates to about £5,000 less in a year! There are more cases of single mums than single dads out there and so women earn less and with the rising prices it makes it so much harder for single mothers to pay for energy bills or even buy meals for their family. Some women must go to food banks or get financial support for their families. Changing the pay for women and men to earn the same amount of money would mean women would have more financial security and be able to afford food and heating for example.

An example of the pay gap is in football. I never hear about how women get paid lots of money in the UK for playing football or about how they are spending it, but I hear a lot about how much men footballers are earning and how they are spending it on mansions and other expensive things. This is because women do not get paid as much as men. The average for someone like Leah Williamson (captain of the English women’s football team) is about £200,000 a year but Harry Kane (Captain of the English men’s football team) earns that in 1 week! This really needs to be changed as they are both teams are excellent but in my opinion, the women’s team plays much better. They have just won the Euros, but the men have not won that in years!

When people retire, they get a pension and unfortunately, that too is affected by the gender pay gap. On average women only receive £57,000 whereas men receive a whopping £203,000. Something needs to be changed by that as this leaves women with less financial security in later life and they may still think men are better and you need a man. Not having as much money in the bank could mean that if you run out of money in later life, you might not be able to pay for medical bills or leave anything for your family. This could mean that women must reapply for jobs they might not get as they are too old or have to sell their house, flat, or belongings. This is a really frightening thought for older women as it’s quite embarrassing and you might need to ask for help from someone. Having more money for a pension would mean that they are stable and able to get a few luxuries when they are older.

We need to make sure that they know it is ok for them to speak out to get help, or for any women of any age. We need to spread awareness of the facts and make things change between women’s and men’s pay as now men are still seen as the more powerful or able to do things much better than women and get paid more and that’s not true! You can get involved by sharing the word about women's pay and sharing articles like this. You can also sign petitions online by searching up the gender pay gap and clicking on some of the articles and petitions. Another thing you can do is if you have money to spare maybe donate online to equal-pay charities such as Fawcett. With your help, we can get pay to be equal for everyone.