Would you like to get paid fairly, and equally, for the work you do? Would you like to know that your employer pays women, on average, about the same as it pays men? Do we even need to ask these questions?

Well, no, we shouldn’t need to ask these questions. But we have had to, for years and years. And we’ll continue to do so until we’re blue in the face – because men are still getting paid more than women.

Last year, for the first time, the government asked British companies with more than 250 employees had to submit data about what they paid male and female employees. We were hopeful that a public naming and shaming would give firms a kick up the proverbial, encouraging them to sort out their (expansive, as it turned out) pay gaps. But a year on, it looks like little has changed.

This year’s deadline for companies to submit their pay gap information fell on 4 April, and with the figures rolling in, the results aren’t looking too good. A BBC analysis of the data found that fewer than half of the UK’s biggest employers had succeeded in narrowing their gender pay gap. Even more depressingly, 45% of British firms have actually managed to increase the gap between what they’re paying men and women, with the finance and insurance sector being revealed as one of the worst industries for equal pay.

This is what would happen if women only did the work they were paid for