Equal Pay

Abstract

Until 1975 men and women often received different rates of pay for doing exactly the same work. Employers assumed that male workers had families to support and therefore needed a decent wage, and that female workers were earning ‘pin money’ for family luxuries. Although it is now against the law to pay different rates to men and women for the same job, the traditional assumption about men needing more money than women is at least one of the reasons why women still earn only 66% of what men do.