It’s 2017, and yet news of the gender pay gap still dominates our headlines with statistics suggesting that the gap will not close for another 24 years.
Big stories arising from large well-known corporations such as the BBC and Google are sparking people’s attention, and making employees more aware of the salary differences between them and the opposite sex.
However, Game of Thrones looks to be showing the way forward in Hollywood’s equal pay dispute after it was revealed that the fantasy drama’s male and female stars earn the same amount per episode.
Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow, and Emilia Clarke who plays Daenerys Targaryen each received $500,000 (£390,000) for each episode of series seven.
The salaries of the British pair are matched by GoT’s other main characters including Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Lena Headley, according to Variety.
The Variety did not divulge if other members of the cast are paid the same amount.
The statistics were included in Variety’s list of the highest-paid TV actors of the past year, with only Robert de Niro and Mark Harmon earning more than the Game of Thrones cast, with salaries of $775,000 and $525,000 respectively.
The report also notes that the five main stars (four males and one female) of the Big Bang Theory each pull in $900,000 per episode.
Whilst HBO are taking the matter of equal pay seriously, the rest of Hollywood is notoriously behind the times.
The world’s 10 best-paid actors in the past year were calculated by Forbes magazine recently to have earned a total of $488.5m (£380.5m)
That’s almost three times more than their female counterparts, who took home $172.5m (£134m) between them.
Transformers star Mark Wahlberg tops the male list with $68m (£53m) – compared with $26m (£20m) for the best-paid woman, La La Land’s Emma Stone.
Rebecca joined the HRreview editorial team in January 2016. After graduating from the University of Sheffield Hallam in 2013 with a BA in English Literature, Rebecca has spent five years working in print and online journalism in Manchester and London. In the past she has been part of the editorial teams at Sleeper and Dezeen and has founded her own arts collective.
