Most people think employers should have to audit their wage rates to help close the gender pay gap, according to a new report.
A survey by the Fawcett Society and Unison showed 85 per cent of respondents supported new laws requiring employers to conduct pay audits, and to take action if differences in rates for men and women were found.
The poll of 1,000 adults also revealed that half of men and a third of women were unaware of the 17 per cent gender pay gap for full time workers.
Campaigners have dubbed 30 October Equal Pay Day, arguing that women effectively worked for nothing for the rest of the year because of the difference in pay.
The report showed that the highest gender pay gap in the UK was in West Somerset at 52 per cent, compared with just 1.5 per cent in parts of London.
Fawcett Society chief executive Ceri Goddard said: “We urge the government to place a legal duty on employers to check for and rectify any gender pay gaps - a measure supported by the vast majority of the British public. Women must also be given greater access to justice by enabling representative actions and the use of hypothetical comparators in discrimination claims.”
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