So how has Covid-19 affected gender pay equality?

The long-term effects of the pandemic on equal pay and the gender pay gap will take time to reveal themselves, and many male-dominated sectors have also suffered in 2020. Yet evidence suggests that some women’s earnings and employment have been hit particularly hard. By May, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) had confirmed that mothers were 1.5 times more likely than fathers to have left or lost jobs during the pandemic. New research published for Equal Pay Day 2020 by the Women’s Budget Group (WBG), meanwhile, points to a ‘gender furlough gap’. Women make up the majority of those who have been furloughed in every UK region except the West Midlands, with young women aged 18-24 most likely to be furloughed.

As a result, this Equal Pay Day sees many feminist campaigners and economists sounding the alarm that the pandemic could set back financial gender equality by generations. “We’re seeing already, and we’re about to carry on experiencing, a growing gap in terms of gender inequality,” Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, tells Stylist. In an ideal world, the UK would be able to see “a lovely line of progression” on women’s financial security, including closing the gender pay gap over time, she says. Yet some indicators suggest “we’re actually going backwards”.

For Equal Pay Day 2020, let’s have a new conversation about financial gender equality