Women working 59 days ‘for free’ while men get higher salaries

Women in Europe still work 59 days 'for free' according to the latest figures released yesterday by the European Commission show.

The gender pay gap - the average difference between women and men's hourly earnings across the entire economy - has barely moved in recent years and still stands at around 16% (it stands at 16.4% as the year before).

In effect it means that today women work 59 days "for free" until they match the amount earned by men.

"The very slight decreasing trend for the past years is largely a result of the economic crisis, which has seen men's earnings decrease, rather than women's earnings increase," said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner.

"Equal pay for equal work is a founding principle of the EU, but sadly is still not yet a reality for women in Europe. Following years of inaction, it is time for a change. The European Commission is currently working on an initiative to trigger change, so that in the near future we will no longer need an Equal Pay day."

The gender pay gap is shown as a percentage of men's earnings and represents the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of male and female employees across the EU economy.

The latest figures show an average 16.4% gender pay gap in 2012 across the European Union. They show stagnation after a slight downward trend in recent years, with the figure around 17% or higher in previous years.

A continuous decreasing trend can be found in Denmark, the Czech Republic, Austria, the Netherlands and Cyprus, where other countries (Poland, Lithuania) have reversed their decreasing trend in 2012. In some countries like Hungary, Portugal, Estonia, Bulgaria, Ireland and Spain, the gender pay gap has increased in recent years.

The declining trend in the pay gap can be explained by several factors, such as a rising share of higher educated female workers or the greater impact of the economic downturn on some male-dominated sectors, such as construction or engineering. The change is therefore not solely due to improvements in pay and working conditions for women.

A report by the European Commission from December 2013 on the implementation of EU rules on equal treatment for women and men in employment found that equal pay is hindered by a number of factors.

These include a lack of transparency in pay systems, a lack of legal clarity in the definition of work of equal value, and procedural obstacles.

Such obstacles are for example the lack of information of workers necessary to bring a successful equal pay claim or including information about the pay levels for categories of employees.

Increased wage transparency could improve the situation of individual victims of pay discrimination who would be able to compare themselves more easily to workers of the other sex.