Prominent BBC presenters Mishal Husain, Jo Whiley, Clare Balding and more have lent their support to a campaign urging organisations to pay women and men equally.

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Victoria Derbyshire, Rajini Vaidyanathan and Samira Ahmed have also drawn attention to the Equal Pay Day campaign, highlighting new research that found at current rates the gender wage gap would take 100 years to close.

On average, women earn 14.1 per cent less than men, receiving only 86p for every pound a man earns. The Fawcett Society, the charity behind the campaign, estimates that this means that from today (10th November) women effectively work for free.

BBC staff are lending their support to the campaign after the BBC's gender pay gap was exposed after salary figures for its highest earning on screen talent were revealed earlier this year.

Participants include presenter Victoria Derbyshire, Today hosts Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague, BBC Five Live presenter Rachel Burden, Woman's Hour host Jane Garvey, Radio presenter Anita Anand, Front Row's Samira Ahmed, Radio 1's Jo Whiley, BBC Breakfast's Lousie Minchin and presenter Clare Balding.

In June it was revealed that just a third of the 96 on-screen stars earning over £150,000 a year are women, with the top seven earners all men.

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More than 40 of the BBC’s leading female stars wrote to Hall after the pay list was published to demand that the director-general takes urgent action over the discrepancy.

Authors

Thomas LingDigital editor, BBC Science Focus

Thomas is Digital editor at BBC Science Focus. Writing about everything from cosmology to anthropology, he specialises in the latest psychology, health and neuroscience discoveries. Thomas has a Masters degree (distinction) in Magazine Journalism from the University of Sheffield and has written for Men’s Health, Vice and Radio Times. He has been shortlisted as the New Digital Talent of the Year at the national magazine Professional Publishers Association (PPA) awards. Also working in academia, Thomas has lectured on the topic of journalism to undergraduate and postgraduate students at The University of Sheffield.

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