Know your own worth if you want to avoid the age-related pay gap

Know your own worth if you want to avoid the age-related pay gap

But, all too frequently, the growing numbers of fifty- and sixtysomethings take home little more than 'pocket money'. Government statistics show that part-timers (which most older workers are) earn only 64 per cent of what full-timers get per hour, and pay slumps significantly after people pass the age of 49. To add insult to injury, women in this age group still earn much less than men, with the gender pay gap at 20 per cent for people in their fifties and 15 per cent for workers in their sixties. The Equal Pay Act has been in place for 38 years, but the gender pay gap still averages 17 per cent across all age groups.

The Employment Equality Age Regulations will have been operating for two years next month, but we will probably have to wait several years more before the age pay gap narrows.

The problem with discrimination is that we often commit it subconsciously. Just as it used to be acceptable to pay women less when men were seen as the main breadwinners, it may now be vaguely acceptable to pay less to older people who no longer have children to support. And Gordon Brown's focus on 'hard-working families' arguably marginalises people who fall outside this group, such as part-timers without children. His encouragement of volunteering.....continued below

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Certainly, many fiftysomethings see their pay prospects reduced by age. Fred (not his real name), who is 59, says his age 'is a tremendous disadvantage'. A journalist, he reached his earnings peak at 41, when he was paid about three times the average wage. Now, after periods of illness and working freelance, he is on benefits while he retrains as a debt adviser.

'Whatever the law says, there is a feeling that employers won't look at you when you're much over 40,' he says. 'If I went into the private sector, potential managers would be saying about me: "He's older than me, better qualified than me, he'd be an embarrassment".'

Fred's old school friends are similarly descending into under-achievement: a computer expert has become a driver and a leading technician in his field is trying to get a job as a clerk.

However, in very specific areas, older workers may still be able to get good jobs and high pay. Half the top people in the oil and gas sector are due to resign in the next five years, according to the Association of Executive Search Agents, which says there is an extreme shortage of talent due to lack of foresight and training in the early 1980s and the retirement of baby boomers.

Job-seekers over the age of 50 need to start by looking confident and showing initiative, says marketing consultant Steve Manton. And they need to be assertive when discussing pay. 'You need to set the price for the job at the start of the relationship,' he says. Employers would normally have in mind a salary range they would pay for a new recruit, from £23,000 to £26,000, for instance. Making your case for getting the top end of the range would show initiative, says Manton, and would obviously set your base pay at the top end of the scale for all the time you worked for that employer.