evidence: The Office for National Statistics (ONS) collects data on earnings in the UK which it uses to calculate gender pay differences. In 2016, the average pay of women working full-time was only 90.6% of men’s pay. This means that compared to men, women stopped earning on the 10th November 2016 – they were effectively working for no money after this date, which is referred to as Equal Pay Day. On average, a woman working full-time in 2016 earned £5,732 less a year than a man (Allen, 2016, Fawcett Society, 2016). When part-time employees are included, the gender pay gap was 18.1% in 2016. The pay gap varies across sectors and regions, rising to up to 55% in the finance sector. In 2012, 64% of the lowest paid workers were women, contributing not only to women's poverty but to the poverty of their children. [...] During the 1920s and 30s, state policy in the UK also reflected the common practice of lower wages for women, both in pay rates and in the lower rates of unemployment benefit, to which they were entitled. Women workers also campaigned against these injustices. With women’s suffrage, women’s groups and trade unions sought to mobilise women to demand equal pay and equal unemployment benefit as an election issue. The issue of equal pay was again raised during WWII, and became an increasingly articulated demand by trade unions and women’s organizations from 1950s onwards.