Are you earning what you deserve? Are you being punished for being a stay-at-home mum? Get the low-down and take action on the latest issues that affect women at work

Work life balance gets political
Helping parents to achieve a work life balance has become a hot political issue over the past couple of months.

Women's Minister Ruth Kelly spoke at a Fawcett Society seminar at the end of May and chose to highlight how she believes the Government needs to support working mothers - and fathers.

Ms Kelly said: 'I know myself how hard it can be to balance a rewarding career with family life. And I passionately believe that a society where women and men are truly treated equally is one which will be better for all of us to live in.' She laid out what the Government has done so far to achieve better balance and what she believes it still has to do. You can read her speech on the Fawcett website: www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party leader David Cameron also said that his party will also take up these issues and that the key is persuading employees to be more flexible about the hours that women [and men?] work. 'It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well-being,' he said.

A spokeswoman for the Fawcett Society said: 'We welcome that both main political parties are talking about the barriers that many women face to competing in the workplace on an equal footing because they have responsibilities for caring for children or other family.

'We want to see strong measures introduced to help with this problem - such as laws to limit working the long working hours in the UK and the right to part-time working.' For more information on how Fawcett thinks the problem should be tackled, visit www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

Top women have even bigger pay gaps
New figures show that the pay gap suffered by women at work is even larger for high earners.

Figures compiled by the Equal Opportunities Commission show women that the UK's top male earners earn a massive 27 per cent [do we use percent - one word?] more on average than the highest-earning women.

Women in full-time work typically take home 17 per cent less than their male counterparts - and this gap is even bigger for women working part-time. But these figures show that the situation is even worse for women at the top of their careers. This may be partly because pay gaps are worse in private companies than in public sector organisations.

Kate Bellamy, senior policy officer at the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality between men and women in the workforce, said: 'It is appalling that 30 years after equal pay laws came in, women are still being short-changed in the workplace.'

Fawcett has called on the government to introduce mandatory pay audits for all employers. 'This is the only way we will be able to end the pay secrecy that allows discrimination to thrive, especially in the private sector, where pay gaps are widest,' she added.

To read Fawcett's analysis of pay gaps and proposed solutions go to www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

Women's assets
The Fawcett Society is starting a new project to look at women's savings and other financial assets compared to men.

It is well-documented that women have lower incomes than men. Women working full-time earn on average 17 per cent less an hour than men. But if you look at all income (including benefits, pensions and other income), women's average income is about half of men's.

This means it is very difficult for many women to put aside money into a savings account or pension, build up a mortgage on their own and pay off debts.

Fawcett's new project will look at all these problems and possible solutions. To find out more about the income gaps between women and men, take a look at the last Fawcett report Money, money, money - is it still a rich man's world?