Explanations offered for EU’s biggest gender pay gap

Estonia is the member state with the largest gender pay gap in the EU, with a 22.7% difference between the hourly earnings of men and women. In a submission to the European Commission on proposed EU action on gender pay transparency, the Estonian government sought to explain some of the reasons why the gap between men’s and women’s earnings is so large.

It pointed out that individually negotiated pay is widespread in Estonia, opening the door to subjective and potentially discriminatory pay setting. Many employers have no consistent approach to pay structures and less than a quarter of organisations in the country have undertaken a job evaluation.

More generally, fewer than one in five (18.6%) employees were covered by collective agreements in 2015, and among company employees the figure was only 16.3%.

The minister of social affairs, Tanel Kiik, said the Estonian government supports measures to increase pay transparency, such as publishing details of pay in job advertisements. However, it opposes binding EU legislation on the issue.