From now until Dec. 31, women work for free: this is the gender pay gap in the EU

Brussels – Women in the European Union continue to earn less than men. Despite the principles of pay equity, nondiscrimination, and equal opportunity, the wage gap in Europe stands at 13 per cent.

In concrete terms, it means that a woman earns €0.87 compared to €1 earned by a man and, at the end of the year, it is as if she got one and a half months’ salary less. Ironically, the Equal Pay Day falls today, November 15 (just 45 days before the end of the year), and opens the period when, symbolically, women are working for free.

Strides, albeit small, have been made in the past five years, in which “female employment has increased by 2.9 per cent, and the gender pay gap has decreased by 1.5 per cent,” declared Věra Jourová, Vice President for Values and Transparency, Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, and Helena Dalli, Commissioner for Equality.

The work of the European Commission

The Gender Equality Strategy for the Five-Year Period 2020–2025 is the binder of initiatives the EU is pursuing to combat the gender gap. Regarding work, the crux of the issue is that women tend to work in lower-paid sectors, such as caregiving. “This is not simply a matter of choice, but the result of social pressures and inequalities,” the Commissioners and the Vice President reiterated.

In terms of numbers, if the European gender gap in 2022 was 13 per cent, the differences are substantial among the 27, with figures ranging from 21 per cent in Estonia to -0.7 in Luxembourg. Clearly, it is also up to each state to do its part.

“We are asking member states to ensure full implementation of the directive on pay transparency,” the Commission says. In essence, the request is to implement a directive that protects equal pay for equal work in the EU, regarded as one of the EU’s founding community principles, enshrined in Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

In the area of employment, gender stereotypes still have a lot of leeway, of which the combination (seemingly incompatible) motherhood-career is a case in point.

The Commission spoke on the issue, having abandoned the proposal on maternity leave. In an effort to modernize, the need to “share care responsibilities between women and men” was highlighted, introducing a significantly more equal definition of gender roles into European regulatory language. The first step is the introduction of paternity leave, defined as a period of at least 10 working days around the birth of the child, with an indemnity at least equal to sick pay.

Another step forward was taken at the end of 2022 by introducing the directive concerning gender balance on corporate boards. The goal was for listed companies to achieve at least 40 per cent of underrepresented gender on the boards, or 33 per cent among all directors. Great focus is on appointment transparency, with objective evaluation based on qualifications and merit, regardless of gender. At the end of 2024, it will be possible to see whether member countries have had the capacity and commitment to concretize the directive and contribute to the European Strategy. Moreover, the gender wage gap also impacts retirement, as shown by the Commission’s Pension Adequacy Report 2024. “Most of the elderly are women (women win the longevity in the EU race, ed.). This makes the gender gap in old age a particular social challenge,” the report says. For women, pensions are 25 per cent lower than for men, showing an increase in the differential with increasing age. This once again confirms that the so-called gender gap is an issue of social relevance and impact.

In the Gender Equality Strategy, equal pay plays an important role in achieving the European goals set for the five years. But the road does not end here. “As President Ursula von der Leyen announced, next year, the Commission will present a roadmap for women’s rights, which will set out a long-term vision for the full realization of women’s rights and the fundamental principles of gender equality in the EU,” recall Jourová, Schmit, and Dalli.