BY the time you read this women across Britain will have effectively been working for free for the best part of two days. That will continue until the end of the year. A whole 52 days in total. Welcome to the modern gender pay gap.

It is more than four decades since the Equal Pay Act was introduced, yet campaigners predict that at current rates it will take at least another 54 years to reach parity.

The gulf currently stands at 14.2 per cent reflecting the pay gap for men and women working full-time based on data from the Office for National Statistics. These figures from 2014 – the most recent available – are measured by average gross hourly pay. This compares to 15.7 per cent for 2013.

Equal Pay Day – marked on Monday – falls five days later than last year according to the Fawcett Society, the UK's leading charity for women's equality and rights.

Progress some might say, but the fact that this day still repeatedly occurs in early November shows just how little headway has been made in closing the gap in salaries between men and women. Nor has any such scant advances been steady: the chasm widened from 2013 to 2014 by three days.

In July, David Cameron boldly vowed to "end the gender pay gap in a generation". All very admirable. But how about not in a generation? How about now? Isn't 45 years since the legislation successfully lobbied for by the female machinists at the Ford car plant in Dagenham (who earned 15 per cent less than their male colleagues) and championed by the late Barbara Castle long enough?

There are, of course, surefire ways to help bump up your salary. These can be summarised as 1) be a man (obviously); 2) don't have children (over and above the traditional pay gap, women face a "motherhood penalty"); and 3) watch that waistline (a study by the US-based Vanderbilt Law School found very thin women earned £14,500 more than their average-sized counterparts).

Depressing, huh? Arguably almost as dispiriting as the comments being written on forums debating this issue. These include suggestions that the gender pay gap is "self-inflicted and not due to discrimination", about "continually playing the victim card" and "a myth".

Equally they are fond of quoting government stats that the gender pay gap is the lowest on record and virtually eliminated among full-time workers under 40. Note: the use of the words "lowest" and "virtually". This battle is not over by a long way.

I would be curious to see how those making barbed remarks would feel if their boss rocked up to their desk, said thanks very much for all the stellar hard work, but for the remainder of the year, your wage packet will be a big fat zilch.

Oh, but you are still be expected to be in the office on time every morning, do the same workload and hit all those big targets. Why? Because you're a man. Obviously that would never happen. So why should women suffer that very injustice?

Is being in possession of a Y chromosome – a mere fluke of genetics – worth out-earning a female colleague? Author and social commentator Polly Vernon has dubbed this ridiculous anomaly the "Penis Upkeep Grant".

In The Herald today, Scots-born Dorothy Byrne, the head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, asserts that the next hurdle for women to overcome in the workplace is juggling getting older with the demands of being part of the sandwich generation – those caring for elderly parents alongside bringing up their own children – alongside the thorny reality of dealing with the menopause.

Ms Byrne, who this weekend will be given a Scottish Bafta for an Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting, argues that the stresses of the menopause and caring for elderly parents should be as important to employers as pregnancy.

She added that although overt sexism is not as prevalent in the media as it was when she began her career, the issue of the menopause is hardly ever talked about and affects women in work deeply.

New research, meanwhile, has found that women in the UK are more likely to feel the strain than men as they balance a career with motherhood.

Figures from the Health and Safety Executive for 2014/15 show that an estimated 68,000 women aged 35 to 44 are stressed at work. This compares to 46,000 men of the same age. A further 78,000 women aged 45 to 54 experienced work-related stress compared to 58,000 men.

There is something jarringly wrong with this picture. We have surely reached tipping point? Let's not be having this discussion five years from now – never mind another half a century.