The Feminist Future of Work

This briefing argues that the Labour Government’s forthcoming Employment Rights Bill has the potential to reduce the gender pay and earnings gaps and take strides towards a feminist future of work. It recounts the measures enclosed in Labour’s New Deal for Working People, assessing them for their potential impact on women and making recommendations for where measures need to go further to improve women’s working lives. These will not only make a difference to individuals’ working conditions but also help to strengthen the economy.

Women’s position in the labour market continues to be influenced by structural inequalities. This means that women are the majority of people in low paid and precarious work, as well as those more likely to face discrimination over the course of their working life. For example:

• More women (3.5%) than men (2.8%) are employed on zero-hours contracts.
• 6.5% of women do not earn enough to qualify for sick pay compared to 2.8% of men.
• The gender earnings gap (weekly pay) was 25% for all workers in 2024 while the gender pay gap was 14.3%.
• More women (10.5%) than men (7.2%) are classified as low earners.
• 72% of people who work part-time are women.
• 25.1% of women compared to 19.1% of men are classified as economically inactive.

The Employment Rights Bill could change these statistics in a way that will benefit women workers substantially, help reduce the gender pay gap over time and contribute to a more gender equal economy. This is because Labour’s ‘New Deal for Working People’ targets women-led sectors, provides new protection against discrimination, extends basic employment rights to more women and begins to redistribute some unpaid care work.

These new provisions have the potential to ensure:

• 555,000 women will have newfound job security if the Employment Rights Bill ends the use of exploitative zero-hours contracts ¹ .
• 1.47 ² million women will have new rights to sick pay under new provisions so long as Labour delivers on commitments to remove the earnings eligibility for sick pay.
• A reduction in women’s economic inactivity rate compared to that of men’s with an estimated potential contribution of up to £88.7 billion to the UK economy ³ . This will also require substantial investment in child, social and healthcare.

Nonetheless the Women’s Budget Group urges the new Government to go further on a number of reforms to increase women’s labour market participation and therefore reduce the gender pay and income gaps in the long term. The Employment Rights Bill will need to tackle the unequal distribution of unpaid care work and structural inequalities to:

• Extend statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay to self-employed workers and increase the rate to at least the National Minimum Wage ⁴ without changing the period of payment.
• Ensure genuine flexible working by introducing an advertising duty for all jobs to be advertised as flexible except in reasonable exceptions.
• Guarantee that Britain stays in step with Europe on women’s rights by implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive within 18 months, as is required by EU member states.
• Review and restore legal aid in discrimination cases to ensure women have access to new employment rights as well as adequately resourcing the EHRC to enforce women’s rights.
• Introduce a new model of parental leave ensuring six months non-transferable leave for each parent, on top of six months of maternity leave and one month of paternity leave to be taken right after birth.
• Strengthen and properly enforce the public sector equality duty with new duties on and training for Government officials.
• Deliver comprehensive reform of the social care and early education and childcare systems as well as paid carers’ leave, to help redistribute unpaid care work.

Read the full report