Women will benefit from the National Living Wage – but not enough to close the gender pay gap

Women will benefit more from higher minimum wages because they are lower paid

With the Chancellor's implementation of a national living wage, people over 25 will be paid a minimum of £7.20 an hour from April next year, rising to £9 by 2020 (Getty)

George Osborne's National Living Wage, a key part of his summer Budget announcement in July, will boost the wages of almost a third of British women, but not enough to close the gender gap.

By 2020, 29 per cent of women will have increased pay because of the Living Wage changes, compared to 18 per cent of men, according to research from Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank.

Women will benefit more from higher minimum wages because they are lower paid. The Foundation said that women will still receive smaller annual cash gains of £690 in 2020, compared to £860 more received by men.

“We estimate that this will have a modest impact on the mean gender pay gap, speeding up the pace at which it narrows by up to one-fifth,” the report said.

Osborne declared that the Conservatives were “the party of the working people” when he announced that a new ‘living wage’ would raise hourly rates to £7.20 by April 2016 for the over 25s, with a further increase of £9 per hour by 2020.

However the Living Wage Foundation, which calculates the amount a person needs to live on using economic data, said that the average person needs £7.85 an hour and £9.15 in London – already short of Osborne’s rate.