Gender pay gap persists in Europe

Even though women are on average better educated than men in the EU, they earn 14.1% less on average, with big variations across sectors, positions, and member states, according to the ‘European Jobs Monitor’ by the EU Commission and Eurofound.

While the gender pay gap was at 15.8% in 2010, it shrank only marginally to 14.1% in 2019. At this pace, it would take more than 70 years for the gender pay gap to disappear. The gap in pensions between women and men is even bigger at 29.5%.

The numbers stand in stark contrast to the average educational attainment, which is higher for female employees than for male employees in nearly all EU member states.

Variations across countries, sectors, and the hierarchy

The report published by the European Commission and Eurofound found substantial variations in the gender pay gap across member states.

The gender pay gap is the lowest in Luxemburg, Romania, and Italy, where it remains below 5%. Estonia, Latvia, Austria, and Germany find themselves at the other end of the spectrum with gender pay gaps of around 20%.

Among economic sectors, financial services show by far the largest gender pay gap, reaching nearly 30%. Generally, the issue is more pronounced in high-wage than in low-wage sectors.

The gender pay gap also widens the higher up the hierarchical ladder one goes. At the management level, women earn about 23% less than men, whereas female clerks “only” earn 9% less than male clerks.

These numbers do not yet take into account the effect of the pandemic. In the wake of school closures, parents took on much more unpaid care and household work, with women shouldering much more of the work than men.

Globally, a report by the World Economic Forum, estimates that gender equality was set back by an entire generation due to the pandemic.

Transparency

More gender equality at the workplace is one of the stated aims of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“Equal work deserves equal pay”, she said, when she presented the proposal for an EU directive that should promote pay transparency in March 2021.

If adopted, the directive would force employers to publicly report on the gender pay gap within the company. Moreover, they would have to provide information about the initial pay level in the job vacancy notice.

On Wednesday (15 December), the European Parliament adopted with a large majority a non-legislative report calling for more action on this front. The report welcomes the planned transparency measures but stresses that “pay transparency alone will not address the deep-rooted gender inequalities”.

“To tackle inequalities, we need to increase wages, defend and promote high-quality universal public services, such as free access to health and education, but also access to housing and justice”, the author of the Parliament’s report, MEP Sandra Pereira of The Left party said in a statement.

More women in employment

Nevertheless, there are also some more encouraging signs.

Stephen Quest, director-general of the Commission’s joint research centre who co-authored the ‘European Jobs Monitor’, said that “while closing the gender gap clearly remains a big challenge, there are positive signs, like women’s employment being high in sectors that are likely to continue growing in the future”.

According to the report, two-thirds of the increase in employment over the past two decades was due to women joining the workforce.

However, the rise in women’s employment was disproportionately high in low-wage jobs, so that women are now over-represented in minimum wage jobs.

As possible ways to close the gender pay gap, the ‘European Jobs Monitor’ suggests policies that allow women to go into more high-paying jobs, for example by making work cultures in high-paying sectors more family-friendly, or by incentivising households to share the burden of unpaid work more evenly by offering paternity leave or by changing the tax code.

ECB chief Lagarde advocates for more women in economics

Only a quarter of senior positions in economics at universities and business schools are held by women, according to a recent study. Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), pushes for more women in economics, saying “diversity is key to creating knowledge”.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

Read more with Euractiv

New Dutch government under Mark Rutte wants to spend more

The coalition agreement of the new Dutch government under Prime Minister Mark Rutte foresees more spending on childcare, teacher salaries, and environmental issues, showing the increased influence of the centre-left, liberal party D66.