The UK gender pay gap stands at 12.8% — meaning that across all employees, women earn just 87p for every £1 men earn. That gap has been falling for nearly three decades. But look at how slowly progress has moved in recent years.

When we compare full-time employees, the gap narrows to 6.9%. But that's still a gap. And it has barely moved since 2018, falling less than 2 percentage points in seven years.

Here's the twist. Part-time women actually out-earn part-time men — a negative gap of 2.9%. So why does the overall gap persist? Because women are far more likely to work part-time in the first place — and part-time work pays less. The gap isn't just about wages. It's about the choices women are pushed into.

Women's part-time rate has fallen from 45% in 1997 to 36% today — and men's has risen from 9% to 15%. Progress, yes. But women are still more than twice as likely to work part-time. And part-time jobs pay less per hour. That's why the overall gap persists.

The pay gap nearly triples between your 30s and your 40s — from 3.9% to 9.1%. That's not a coincidence. It's when most women have children. The ONS calls it the motherhood penalty.

The gap varies widely by sector. Finance and professional services are among the worst. Information and communication sits above the UK average of 6.9%. Only water and waste management has a negative gap — but not because women are treated better. It's because most of the low-paid roles are held by men.

Across Europe, the gender pay gap has been falling — but unevenly. The UK made strong progress before dropping out of EU data reporting after Brexit. Sweden — often held up as a model — has barely moved. And Luxembourg has gone negative: women now out-earn men.

The UK sits in the middle of the pack globally — better than Japan, Korea and India, worse than Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg. But no country has fully closed the gap. Not one.

Mapped globally, the pattern is stark. Asia and parts of the Americas are deepest red. Europe is cooling towards teal. But even the most progressive countries haven't reached zero.

Every square is a country. Every red square is a country where women earn less than men. The world still has a long way to go.