Workplace Report (March 2019)

European news

Little progress on closing gender pay gap in EU 


Women still earn 16.0% less than men in the EU according to the latest figures from Eurostat, the official EU statistics agency. The figures, for 2017 for the EU’s 28 members, show little progress on the 16.3% gender pay gap recorded in 2016 and even compared with 2010, when the gap was 17.1%.


The statistics, which do not include public administration, show substantial differences between member states with the largest gender pay gap in Estonia at 25.6% and the lowest in Romania at 3.5%. However, very low gender pay gap figures, such as in Romania (and also Italy at 5.0%), are not necessarily good news for women, as they may simply mean that many lower skilled women are not in the labour market.


On these figures, the gender pay gap in Germany is 21.0%; in the UK it is 20.8%; and in France it is 15.4%. 


https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Gender_pay_gap_statistics


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