The gender pay gap between men and women working full time is at its widest for those over 50, according to new analysis from Rest Less, the digital community for the over 50s.
According to Rest Less’s analysis of pay data from the Office of National Statistics, the median annual salary of women working full time in their 50s was 23% less than the median full time salary of men in the same age group, with women in their 60s earning 25 per cent less.
The median annual salary of a female Full Time Employee (FTE) in 2020 was £27,981 compared with £33,923 for men – a difference of £5,942 and representing 18 per cent less.
Table 1: Full Time Annual Salary (Median) for Women and Men by Age Breakdown, 2020
Chart 1: Gender Pay Gap By Age and Median Earnings for Full Time Employees
According to Rest Less’s analysis, both women and men reach their peak earnings during their 40s when their median annual incomes were £31,403 and £38,829 respectively – equating to a gap of £7,426 and women taking home an annual salary which was nearly one fifth (19%) less than men.
Women’s median full time salaries dropped on average by nine per cent from their peak earnings in their 40s to their 50s and the median earnings for women working full time in their 60s was 24 per cent lower than the median earnings for women in their 40s. By contrast the median salary of men in their 50s, was five per cent lower than those of men in their 40s and for men working full time in their 60s, their median salary was 19 per cent lower than those in their 40s.
Stuart Lewis, Founder of Rest Less, commented: “Women in their 50s and 60s face the double discrimination of age bias, combined with the widest gender pay gap of all ages, receiving a salary of £8,000 less per year than their male counterparts in full time employment.
‘Whilst the state pension age has now been equalised at 66 for both sexes, decades of a gender pay gap and the resulting wide gulf in private pension savings mean that the future retirement incomes of men and women remain far from equal.
‘The fact that earnings peak in our 40s and decline as we head into our 50s and 60s has profound implications for all of us and our retirement savings plans. We can no longer rely on bigger salaries in the years before we retire to fund our pensions, and instead need to consider the most efficient ways to save for retirement from an early age.”
Notes to Editors
*Rest Less’s analysis is based on data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2020 which was released on 3 November 2020
For media enquiries, please contact:
Aisling Gray
Head of Communications
Phone: 07900996065
Email: [email protected]
About Rest Less
Rest Less (restless.co.uk) launched in December 2018 and is a membership community for the over 50s designed to help its members get more out of life. Rest Less has thousands of jobs available on its site from progressive age-friendly employers across the country. Rest Less is the leading site in the UK to offer flexible opportunities to work, volunteer or even start a new career path, specifically targeting the rapidly growing over 50s market.