We never hear politicians or pundits arguing that men should be paid more than women. Yet this reality is fundamental to the organisation of our society. The mean gender pay gap for full-time work runs at 14.1%, rising to 18.4% if part-time work is included. And these pay gaps are just one aspect of the unequal division of wealth between the sexes.

Women in Britain continue to undertake a greater share of unpaid caring duties within families, and are therefore more likely to work part-time or to not work at all. For these reasons, women’s share of the nation’s wage bill is even less than is implied by the pay gap. If we do not acknowledge the gendered nature of financial inequality in modern Britain, we cannot hope to change it.

A historical perspective offers valuable insight into why unequal pay so resolutely persists. And it’s a custom that goes back a long way. In the Bible, the Lord tells Moses to place the value of female servants at three-fifths that of male servants. Papyrus from Roman Egypt reveals both a gender-specific division of labour and much lower rates of pay for women’s work. Setting women’s work at a lower value than men’s is not simply a characteristic of our own society. It has occurred in all human societies for which records exist.

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We encounter many different explanations for the ongoing gender pay gap: women work part-time; they take career breaks for family reasons; their work is low skilled; they work in the caring professions; they are under-represented in science and engineering. But these commonly cited explanations assume that pay is set according to the value of the work done in a straightforward and linear way.

When we look at how men’s and women’s labour has been rewarded in the past, we are forced to drop that comforting assumption. For hundreds of years, virtually all work has been segregated by gender, and men have always been paid more. Occasionally men did physically demanding work, which might command a wage premium.

But for the most part their jobs did not call for special skills or strength that only men possess. Why did men weave, and women spin, and, anyway, who is to say which task required the greater skill? If men are suited to heavy work, why was laundry work always women’s work, given its physical demands? Why was driving a tram man’s job? When the tram drivers left to fight the first world war it quickly became apparent there was nothing in the work that women could not do.

Low pay played a critical role in ensuring men’s continued dominance over women in all spheres of life

In truth, there was rarely anything innate to the work itself that made some jobs male and others female, it was custom and tradition that determined who did what. Men’s jobs were paid at a higher rate because men did them and men were responsible for maintaining their families, not because the job in question was inherently more valuable. Meanwhile, low female pay made it very difficult for a woman to live independently. It forced her into a position of dependency on, first, her father and, later, her husband.

These customs were consolidated with the Industrial Revolution. Whereas most work in pre-industrial England was carried on inside the home, the mechanisation of work involved the construction of large, expensive machinery and mills and factories to house them. As a result, paid work started to move outside the home and this created much sharper divisions between “housework” and work – between unpaid domestic work by women, and paid employment undertaken by men outside the home.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The perception that women’s work was less valuable than men’s was carried forward into this new world.’ Illustration: Alamy

Yet the perception that women’s work was less valuable than men’s was carried forward into this new world. Indeed, it was given a new lease of life. According to the Victorians, women were “naturally” inclined towards motherhood and home, while men were “naturally” destined to govern, conquer and work. And low female wages were not simply an expression of this worldview, they also helped to create it.

High wages in the factory districts had initially caused women to abandon the home for the mills. Low wages were vital in ensuring that women remained in the home performing the necessary tasks of the household – fetching water, making fires, shopping, cooking, child-rearing and cleaning. Low pay was not simply a convenience for employers; it also played a critical role in ensuring men’s continued dominance over women in all spheres of life.

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The burden of housework has eased over the past century, with ever smaller families and modern appliances. But all homes – and particularly those with children – still require some domestic labour. We can pay for childminders and cleaners to do this labour; or we can do it ourselves for free. But it does need to be done. For centuries, high male wages and lower female wages have formed a central plank in ensuring that every household has some female labour available for cooking, childcare and cleaning. Today’s gender pay gap plays an important role in maintaining the status quo.

It is little surprise, then, that the Equal Pay Act of 1970 has struggled to usher in a new world in which men and women earn equal pay. A historical perspective allows us to see that pay is connected to much deeper questions about paid and unpaid work. It is only by grasping the true extent and deep historical roots of unequal pay that we might take meaningful steps to address it.

• Emma Griffin is professor of modern British history at the University of East Anglia and presenter of Mind the Gender Pay Gap on Monday 12 March, BBC Radio 4, 8pm