Implementing rules against European gender pay gap

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 07/10/2022

Working women in Europe earn on average 13% less than men for doing the same job. Pay secrecy is helping mask deeper inequalities, while shocks to our economy threaten fragile gender equality gains, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) says in a statement supporting the proposed EU Pay Transparency Directive. 

EU negotiators are discussing the implementation of transparency rules first presented by the Commission in April 2021 aiming to narrow the EU gender pay gap.

The European Parliament’s committees for women rights and employments employees have sharpened proposals in  the directive. The committees want companies with at least 50 employees to be fully transparent regarding salaries while the original proposal was to set the border at 250 employees.

Key points in the directive:

• Companies to be obliged to report on gender pay gap
• Pay secrecy in work contracts to be prohibited
• Gender action plan to be developed when pay gap is higher than 2.5%

“Lower wages in turn lead to less social protection, fewer pension entitlements and other social benefits”, EIGE says.

“And women continue to pay the price for this well into retirement, with pensions 37% lower than men’s. If we fail to respond to challenges in the labour market, including women tending to work fewer hours and in more precarious employment, then Europe faces an even wider pensions gap within a generation.”

“Young women faced greater unemployment than men since the outbreak of Covid-19. For young women of a migrant background, they faced even higher risks of unemployment.” says EIGE Director, Carlien Scheele.

In the EU, the unemployment rate for women between the ages of 15-29 rose from 11% in 2019 to 12% in 2021. Women of a migrant background in the same age group were harder hit – unemployment increased from 17 % in 2019 to 20 % in 2021.

“Looking at the gender pay gap in monthly earnings for women and men between 16-29 years-old and 30-49 years old, we see a stark contrast. Because the gap increases almost fourfold between these ages.”

“And then when care enters the picture, the gender pay gap is aggravated. Due to unshared unpaid care responsibilities, the highest gender pay gap is found among couples with children under the age of seven – sitting at 48%.”

“Additionally, the gender pay gap also reaches 48% by the time women and men are 65 and over. As a consequence, this carries on into pension years, where the gender pension gap sits at 29% among women and men over the age of 65”, EIGE numbers show.