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A woman office goer buys a newspaper
© AFP/File Jack Guez

The Women and Work Commission, set up by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004 and charged with investigating the wage gap, concluded that gender segregation was costing the British economy billions of pounds (euros, dollars).

Its report made 40 recommendations on boosting women's pay and career prospects. It also urged a culture change in schools and the workplace, some 30 years after equal pay legislation was introduced.

The commission, chaired by former trade union chief Baroness Margaret Prosser, branded the pay gap an outrage but said there was no "magic bullet" to bring women's average pay into line with that of their male colleagues.

"Many women are working day-in, day-out far below their abilities," Prosser said.

"We are at a crossroads -- 1.3 million new jobs will be created over the next decade and 12 million vacancies will open up.

"If we do not make the fundamental change necessary to our school and workplace cultures, those new jobs and opportunities will be filled in the same old way and women will continue to lose out."

The report, "Shaping a Fairer Future", recommended that schoolgirls should be given a better understanding of pay and prospects in different careers.

It also recommended promoting apprenticeships for women in job sectors suffering skill shortages, as well as improved training for women returning to work after having a child.

Proposals included setting up a national programme to improve vocational training, provide work taster days for children and use work experience to encourage girls to think about non-traditional jobs.

The report said women were concentrated in the caring, cashier, clerical, cleaning and catering job sectors, dubbed the "Five Cs".

It calculated that increasing women's employment and ending the gender segregation would benefit the British economy by some 23 billion pounds (34 billion euros, 40 billion dollars), or two percent of gross domestic product.

Trade unions and campaign groups criticised the commission for not advising that firms should be forced to undertake equal pay audits to ensure that men were not being paid more than women.

Derek Simpson, general secretary of Amicus, Britain's largest manufacturing trade union, said the report had "deliberately missed the point" and that women would have to wait until "Doomsday" to earn the same pay as men without compulsory pay audits.

The commission said equal pay reviews could benefit women and reduce litigation costs -- but added that they addressed only part of the problem.

"Our recommendations encourage employers to consider all the issues we have raised and to take action that will have most impact on women's pay and opportunity," the commission said.

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