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RESOURCE CENTRE

Activity 1 - Payscales

Women earn 18% less per hour than men? Why? That means for every £1 a man earns a woman earns 82p. Over a week, a month or a year that 18p add ups to hundreds, and thousands of pounds difference.

One reason is that jobs traditionally done by men are higher paid than those jobs traditionally done by women.

See if you can match the job to the salary:

The Pay Gap

Although in Britain women earn around 20% less for full-time work and 40% less for part-time work than men it is illegal for an employer to pay women less. The Equal Pay Act says that women and men must be paid the same when they are doing the same job or work that has been rated as equivalent.

One reason that there is a pay gap in Britain is that lots of women work in jobs that have a mostly female workforce and do jobs that are traditionally 'women's work'. Many of these jobs are paid at a much lower rate than jobs which were considered 'men's work '. Would that work 4 U?

School Kids Rights!

No trousers allowed! Here’s an interesting fact: the no trousers rule for girls’ school uniforms applied by some schools causes a great deal of controversy. With so many girls wanting the choice to wear them, the Department for Education and Science revised their guidelines on school uniforms. The school uniform rule should not disadvantage one gender compared with the other. They also recommend that schools must be sensitive to needs of different cultures, races and religions. For example, allowing Muslim girls to wear appropriate dress and Sikh boys to wear traditional headdress.

Equality, whether it’s a girl playing the striker or a boy playing goal attack or a girl studying engineering and a boy studying childcare, it’s about access to choice. If any subject or sport is closed to you because of your gender, then you should be talking to us.

It’s about choice so how come you don’t know about it? Sex discrimination, it doesn’t just start in the workplace you know……

Find out more from our website at www.eoc.org.uk or give our helpline a call on 0845 601 5901 to find out what you and your parents can do to change things

Youth Rights!

‘Stop the exploitation’, what does this mean? You too could be a victim of discrimination in the workplace, school, college or during work placements. It means you have rights as students, part-time workers, apprentices or trainees. Low pay is one issue when you’re young, and you’re starting out in employment but being paid less just because you are a woman (or a man) is against the law.

You may have applied for agency work and been denied an interview because of your sex. You may currently be in part-time employment with a shop or supermarket and found your part-time status might have put you at a disadvantage with regards to promotion. It is vital that you are aware of your rights to help prevent exploitation and being an easy target for discriminatory practices.

Working in the real world is a learning experience so you can’t afford to miss out! Get clued up on issues under the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act. Follow the link to the EOC website….it’s for you…. so take advantage of it…. www.eoc.org.uk