"Women have not faced a greater threat to their financial security and rights in living memory. Decades of steady, albeit slow, progress on equality for women is being dismantled, as cuts to women's jobs and the benefits and services they rely on turn back time on women's equality," said Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society.

"Fewer women working; a widening gap in pay between women and men; entrenchment of outdated gender roles at work and at home and women being forced into a position where they must increasingly rely on a main breadwinner or the state for financial subsidy - this is the picture that emerges when the many policies of economic austerity are stitched together."

But Bird hopes that May's speech will indicate a turnaround.

"There are signs of hope that the government realises its economic strategy isn't working for women, and we hope today's speech signals a willingness to change course," she added.