Chris Bennett: Realising equality of sexes in workplace

Sexist pay policies have been a contentious issue since the Suffragettes first raised the issue of gender equality and despite legislation in the 1970s it’s an issue that just won’t go away.

I doubt there are many people around today that think women should be paid less than men. The issue comes when we focus on the value applied to different roles.

What the gender pay gap figures reveal (see In focus) isn’t that employers pay women less than men, that’s illegal, it’s that women end up in roles that society value less than the roles than men find themselves in. Picking our way through why that should be is a tricky issue as it involves people’s personal choices, values and circumstances.