Women in the UK will work for free from today, referred to as Equal Pay Day, for the rest of the year due to the gender pay gap according to Equal Pay campaigners June Sarpong MBE and Sam Smethers, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society.

The average female worker in the UK gets paid 13.9% less than her male counterpart. Moreover, women earn 86.1 pence to every pound a male earns, meaning that women will effectively be working for free for the rest of the year. Office of National Statistics figures show that female full time workers earn £12.82 per hour compared to £14.16 for men.

Studies from the Fawcett Society show that overall, women can expect to earn significantly less than men over their entire careers as a result of differences in caring responsibilities; clustering in low skilled and low paid work, the qualifications and skills women acquire; and outright discrimination.

In an open letter to Theresa May published in the Telegraph, the Fawcett Society and its supporters have called on the UK Government to close the gender pay gap.

This follows the recent unrest in France earlier in the week.