Your report (28 November) tells us yet again that there is a gender pay gap issue, identifies sectors and areas with seemingly the biggest disparities, and reminds us that the problem is likely to take 60 years to sort out.
Whatever reports are produced, and whatever entreaties are made, the gender pay gap will never go away unless and until something is done to change matters. Well-researched, thought-through proposals have been put to employers and governments. Some good experiments have been conducted, notably the women-only training programmes between 2006 and 2010, which on a shoestring budget skilled and/or retrained more than 25,000 women across a variety of sectors. Schools should separate girls and boys for the Stem suite of subjects, allowing girls to study in the ways proven to be more suitable to them. Employers should introduce positive action programmes which would identify and bring forward women with the capacity and the desire to move on and up.
None of this costs a fortune, but it does require determination and the political will to see change now.
Margaret Prosser
Labour, House of Lords
• At the elite level of women’s football in England – the Women’s Super League – there are many players who would be happy with the equivalent of “$1,000 and $2,000 a month” (Low wages, threats, late payment – football’s non-elite underbelly, Sport, 29 November). Some of them almost play for free. Why? Partly the FA’s ludicrous funding model (a soft cap on spending of 40% of revenue) and partly the extent to which some teams linked to the men’s Premier League receive huge financial support. Small teams – for example, newly promoted Yeovil and Bristol Academy – receive little funding.
John Bird
Bristol
• Your article (Pay squeeze will be the longest in 70 years, 25 November) says how workers have seen a decade without real earning growth. It does not mention the non-workers who are still doing very well for themselves: MPs up 1.3% in 2016 after the 10% increase in 2015; high court judges up 12%-15%; top executive pay up by 10%. We need to be kept aware of the widening pay gap to legitimately direct our anger away from the Jams (“just about managing”) and the scroungers towards the MQNTYs (“managing quite nicely, thank you”), who maintain their power while increasing their income.
Anne Strachan
Manchester
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