Women: you're working the rest of this year for free For every £1 earned by a man in the UK working part- or full-time, a woman earns 81p. That means that it takes the average woman almost 20 years longer than the average man to earn £1m, not racking up that much income until the age of 70, compared to 51 for a man. This day - when women working full-time effectively stop getting paid compared to men earning all year round - has been dubbed Equal Pay Day, and falls three days earlier than it did last year. The Equal Pay Day for women working part time would have been almost 10 weeks ago, on 28 August. Ironically, this cut-off point also falls the day before the official opening night for Made in Dagenham, the West End's new musical, which tells the story of the Ford factory female workers" strike of 1968 that led to the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970. "It is disgraceful that in 2014, women in the UK still effectively work for free for nearly two months of the year relative to men," said Dr Eva Neitzert, deputy CEO of the Fawcett Society, the women's equality charity behind the "this is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt that David Cameron notably refused to wear last week. The Fawcett Society believes the economic recovery is exacerbating the pay discrepancy. The six fastest growing sectors have been female-dominated low-wage industries, such as care work, or male-dominated high-pay areas, such as real estate. The overall wage difference has also been widened by the reduction in public sector jobs, where the gap is 17.1pc, and increase in private sector jobs, where the gap is 24.8pc. The non-profit also called for stricter enforcement of the pay transparency reporting rules, the elimination of employment tribunal fees that "price women out of justice" by preventing them from bringing unequal payment claims, and better childcare opportunities to avoid the so-called "motherhood penalty." While the pay gap is relatively small for women aged 22 to 29, it more than doubles for women in their 30s and doubles again for women in their 40s. Lifting the minimum wage from £6.60 to the living wage, which was £7.65 nationwide and £8.80 in London at the time the research was conducted, would affect almost 1m more women than men, according to Landmann Economics. The move would knock 0.8pc off the gender pay discrepancy -- more than double the average pace the gap has narrowed each year. The gender pay gap has shrunk by 6.2pc in 16 years. This slow rate of improvement has contributed to the UK's slide down the global gender equality rankings. The World Economic Forum's gender gap index, released last month, found that although the UK's overall score has remained largely unchanged in the report's nine years, improvement elsewhere in the world has seen this country slip from 18th place to 26th place over the last year. That places the UK - which did not make the top 20 for the first time this year - behind Nicaragua, Rwanda, the Philippines, Burundi and the US, as well as 14 European countries. The World Economic Forum's report estimated that global gender equality would not be reached for another 81 years -- until 2095. "It is small wonder that Britain is plummeting down the international league tables when it comes to gender equality," Frances O'Grady, TUC general secretary, said. It feels like the glass ceiling is getting stronger not weaker and we need a much tougher approach to stop future generations of women from suffering this pay penalty. Facts about the gender pay gap, according to the TUC: 70pc of women earn below the UK average salary of £32,300, compared to 60pc of men. One in four women working full-time earns less than the living wage, compared to one in six men. Women working part-time earn 34pc less per hour than men working full-time.