Gender pay gap is largest for women over 40
The UK’s gender pay gap narrowed overall in the past year, but widened for women over 40, according to data released by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday (23 October).
The gender pay gap among full-time employees fell to 6.9% in April 2025, down from 7.1% the previous year, marking a reduction of more than a quarter over the past decade, according to ONS figures.
However, among women aged 40 to 49, the gender pay gap has widened to 9.1%, up from 8.9% in 2024.
The wider pay gap for women aged 40 to 49 reflects the lasting impact of the ‘motherhood penalty’ often experienced by working mothers, Ken Mulkearn, director of research at Incomes Data Research, a pay and employment research organisation, told HR magazine.
Melissa Blissett, pay gap analytics lead at Barnett Waddingham, a professional services consultancy, echoed these views and told HR magazine: “Many mid-life women are often sandwiched between caring responsibilities for both children and parents, meaning that many women can never return to full-time working hours.
“The cost of childcare and lack of spaces can result in a woman deciding there is little financial reward for returning to the workplace or that they are not satisfied with the level of care available to them.”
Discussing ways to close the gender pay gap for women over 40, Mulkearn noted that current legislation does not require employers to report pay disparities by age, but “if the law were changed, then it might produce a focus on this disparity and perhaps help reduce it in future years”.
Blissett added that it’s important to consider pay strategy from a total reward perspective. She explained: “Initiatives such as auto escalation or paying full-time equivalent employer pension contributions for a longer period of maternity leave can have a significant impact on women’s overall financial wellbeing.
“It’s also important to focus on equalising policies with male colleagues – such as enhanced paid paternity leave – which has the impact of reducing the gender gap between workplace contribution and experience.”
Mulkearn added: “Employers need policies and practices that ensure that mothers are not penalised on return to work in respect of opportunities for progression and promotion, even and perhaps especially if they work fewer hours than previously.”
Job design also plays a role in “challenging preconceived ideas about full-time roles, enabling them to be reimagined as part-time or shared roles.
“This approach also creates the opportunity for any surplus salary to be redirected to support another woman to lean in, take on greater responsibility, and be financially recognised for it,” Blissett concluded.