Înțelegerea #GenderPayGap - Definiție și cauze

Deși salariu egal pentru principiul muncii egale was already introduced in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the so-called gender pay gap stubbornly persists with only marginal improvements being achieved over the last ten years.

The European Parliament has consistently called for more action to narrow the gap and brought up the issue again in a plenary debate on Monday 13 January.

What is the gender pay gap? And how is it calculated?

Diferența de remunerare între femei și bărbați este diferența dintre câștigurile orare brute medii între femei și bărbați. Se bazează pe salariile plătite direct angajaților înainte de deducerea impozitului pe venit și a contribuțiilor la asigurările sociale. În calcule sunt luate în considerare numai companii cu zece sau mai mulți angajați.

Calculated this way, the gender pay gap does not take into account all the different factors that may play a role, for example education, hours worked, type of job, career breaks or part-time work. But it does show that across the EU women generally earn less than men.

The gender wage gap in the EU

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În întreaga UE, diferența de salarizare diferă mult, being the highest in Estonia (25.6%), the Czech Republic (21.1%), Germany (21%), UK (20.8%), Austria (19.9%) and Slovakia (19.8%) in 2017. The lowest numbers can be found in Slovenia (8%), Poland (7.2%), Belgium (6%), Italy and Luxembourg (5% each) and Romania (3.5%).

Equal pay is regulated by an Directiva UE but the European Parliament has repeatedly asked for its Revizuire and for further measures. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission has announced that they will be working on a new European gender strategy and binding pay transparency measures.

Find out more about what the Parliament does for gender equality

Why is there a gender pay gap?

Interpreting the numbers is not as simple as it seems, as a smaller gender pay gap in a specific country does not necessarily mean more gender equality. In some EU countries lower pay gaps tend to be women having fewer paid jobs. High gaps tend to be related to a high proportion of women working part time or being concentrated in a restricted number of professions.

În medie, femeile fac mai multe ore de muncă neplătite (caring for children or doing housework) and men more hours of paid work: only 8.7% of men in the EU work part-time, while almost a third of women across the EU (31.3%) do so. In total, women have more work hours per week than men do.

So, women do not only earn less per hour, but they also do fewer hours of paid work and fewer women are employed in the workforce than men. All these factors combined bring the difference in overall earnings between men and women to Aproape 40% (pentru 2014).

De asemenea, femeile sunt mult mai probabil să fie cele care au pauze de carieră, iar unele dintre alegerile lor sunt influențate îngrijiri și responsabilități familiale.

Despre Noi 30%of the total gender pay gap can be explained by an overrepresentation of women in relatively low-paying sectors such as care, sales or education. There are still jobs such as in the science, technology and engineering sectors where the proportion of male employees is very high (with more than 80%).

Women also hold fewer executive positions: less than 6.9% of top companies’ CEOs are women. Date Eurostat show that if we look at the gap in different occupations, female managers are at the greatest disadvantage: they earn 23% less per hour than male managers.

But women also still face pure discrimination in the workplace, such as being paid less than male colleagues working within the same occupational categories or being demoted aſter returning from maternity leave.

Benefits of closing the gap

What can be seen also is that the gender pay gap is widening with age - along the career and alongside increasing family demands - whilst it is rather low when women enter the labour market. With less money to save and invest, these gaps accumulate and women are consequently at a higher risk of poverty and social exclusion at an older age (the diferența de pensii între femei și bărbați was about 36% in 2017).

Salariul egal nu este doar o problemă de justiție, dar ar stimula și economia, deoarece femeile ar putea cheltui mai mult. Aceasta ar crește baza de impozitare și ar scuti o parte din povara asupra sistemelor de asistență socială. Evaluări show that a 1% reduction in reduction in the gender pay gap would result in an increase in the gross domestic product of 0.1%.