Brought to you by Penguin.

Money gives us freedom. It may not buy us happiness, but having it allows us to make choices.... The choice to live where you want. The choice to do what you love for work. The choice over how you spend your free time.

But what if you knew that you would earn less than your male counterparts for the rest of your life? Today, being a woman means that you will. Few of us ever talk about it, but great economic inequality still exists between men and women.

• There is no country in the world where women collectively earn as much as men.
• Globally only 34% of women hold managerial positions.
• Only 1p in every £1 of venture capital funding goes to start-ups run by women.
• Research has even found that financial advisors encourage female clients into lower risk - and therefore lower return - investments, in the belief that they can't handle the risk.
• In many countries tampons and sanitary pads are seen as 'luxuries' that women are made to pay tax on.
• It has been found that women ask for pay rises at the same frequency as men, but are 25% less likely to be given them.

Annabelle Williams, a financial journalist for The Times, uncovers the shocking realities of money in the modern world. Awareness is the first step to making change, which is why we all need to understand why women are poorer than men and what exactly we can do about it.