We’ve heard a lot from Nick Clegg and Jo Swinson over the past week on one great inequality in the workplace – the rules around leave after a baby is born. Thanks to the Liberal Democrats in government, parents will soon be able to share all but the first two weeks of a year of parental leave. For me, that policy sums up what we are about. It’s liberal, it’s about allowing people to make choices that are right for them and it does sing to both stronger economy and fairer society mantras.

However, that’s not the only issue of equality in the workplace. Many women will have effectively been working for free for the past month. We may have had equal pay legislation for four decades, but still the median pay for women is around 85% of the median pay for men. Jo recently talked to Cosmopolitan magazine about these issues and the measures she’s put in place to narrow this injustice.

I appreciate that we are bringing you this a little late. That probably says more about the work ethic of Jo Swinson than anything else. Every single time we’ve had this ready to go, she’s gone and done something else, whether it’s tackling payday loans or launching mannequins that reflect actual women’s shape or cracking down on employers who don’t pay the minimum wage or launching initiatives to tackle homophobic bullying. We’re exhausted just watching her.

So, what’s she doing on the gender pay gap:

One of the main measures is an initiative called Think, Act, Report – it covers pay, but also encourages companies to promote gender equality in terms of recruitment, retention and promotion of staff. When you look at the causes of the pay gap, a third is accounted for by occupational segregation – the fact that women are more likely to work in sectors that pay less generally – and some of that goes back to subject choices at school.

Fewer than ten per cent of professional engineers are women, and a study out this week shows two thirds of schoolgirls aren’t ever going to consider it as a career, despite it being a well-paid profession.

Meanwhile, in other less well-paid sectors like the caring professions, women are over-represented.

And what if it doesn’t close:

The government does have additional tools at its disposal. Through the Employment and Regulatory Reform Act we’ve given employment tribunals the power to order equal pay audits where an employer has been found to have breached equal pay and/or sex discrimination laws. We expect this to come into force in October 2014.
And while The Think, Act Report initiative is making good progress at the moment, if it doesn’t ultimately result in narrowing the pay gap, there’s a further provision in the Equality Act that would require large companies to measure their pay gap if industry doesn’t get its act together.

And is there anything women can do as individuals?

Obviously this is not the responsibility of individuals, but people do want to make sure they’re being paid a fair rate for the work they’re doing. We get very British and uptight talking about money, but I think sometimes that’s the catalyst women need to ask for a pay rise – to recognise that the bloke opposite them is getting paid significantly more for doing a similar job.

* Newshound: bringing you the best Lib Dem commentary in print, on air or online.