If you are a woman working in Europe’, you are usually on average from a man for the same job. %You earn 15 less. This means that for every euro a man earns, the woman earns an average of 86 cents.
At the top, women in management earn almost a quarter less than men. CEOs of large companies in Europe’ only ’u is a woman. All of these ’ contributes to an even wider retirement deficit.
What makes the difference in pay between the sexes?
Women still take on most of the childcare, which means they often reduce their working hours. One-third of women and one-third of men in AB’ %8’i works part-time. This makes it difficult for women to move forward in their careers. There are also more women in low-wage sectors such as care and education.
The quarantines showed how deep-rooted these gender inequalities are; Most of the free child care is provided by women. They are also the ones most at risk of losing their jobs during the pandemic.
The European Pillar of Social Rights outlines the need for gender equality. To help close the gender pay gap, the European Commission is introducing wage transparency so companies will legally have to publish how much they pay their employees.
Esther Lynch is Deputy Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation ’ (ETUC). He gave us his insight into this wage transparency directive. She says this is a really important measure because women often assume that they have worked with their colleagues for decades and have the same pay, equal pay. Later, sometimes when you retire, or sometimes because of a news story, you find out that the person you think is doing the same job as you, receiving the same salary as you, is actually getting a lot more salary, ”.
At the end of the day, Esther says, what's needed is “, better laws about work of equal value.
AB’'s Pillar of Social Rights will help because it also calls for a Work-Life Balance with fair sharing of parental leave and the right to more flexible work. This has been adopted into EU law, and member states need to make it their own national law by 2022.
One of the biggest factors holding women back in the workplace is the constant balance between work and home life. The data shows that Germany’ has one of the biggest pay gaps in Europe’. Despite having a female head of state for the past 15 years, she lags behind her European neighbors in terms of gender equality at work compared to countries where the rate of female employment is similar.
Women in the German labour market
Nadine Epplen is a lawyer and represents women in the hotel and restaurant industry. He himself says: “The problem is that even if employment contracts are arranged on a 40-hour per week basis, the employer can allocate the hours at any time. Of course, women with children cannot guarantee their availability.” In his job, he meets women who are fired and demoted because their working hours are not flexible enough.
The pandemic also aggravated problems with the sharing of family duties. Like Nadine and many of her clients, Germany is home to almost all of the women in the ’. ’si works part-time to take care of their families. This is well above the European average.
Nadine’in herself has two children and wants to work full-time, but this is not possible for her because “ nursery hours and school hours do not always correspond to working hours”.
To improve women's representation in the labour market, Germany, like other European countries, ’ needs to implement the European directive on work-life balance by 2022, which includes better access to parental leave and greater flexibility in the workplace.
According to economist Katharina Wrolich’e, joint income taxes need to be improved and access to career opportunities for both parents. Germany says ’ is transitioning from a single-income family model to a single-income family model. In his professional opinion, “Germany’ still needs to put a lot of effort into improving access to child care and quality, as well as working hours”.
GermanyOne of the areas where ’ performs well in terms of equality is the number of women who are members of the board of directors of publicly traded companies. Here it is %There are 36 women involved. However, in order to increase equality in this area, the country is also in the process of implementing quotas.
Hiltrud Werner is the only female board member of Volkswagen’. He told us that he personally welcomes quotas because he believes it will help employers stop missing people with high qualifications due to “ biases.
However, “ thinks that achieving one's career goals will not be free of charge. He admits he must make concessions to get to where he is today.
What about countries across the EU when it comes to exceeding the glass ceiling?
With the current rate of change, it will not be seen that the wage gap in Germany ’ will close until the next century; In ’, France, this could take more than 1,000 years. Some countries have been set for equal pay in this decade. Belgium is one of the pioneers in this regard.
Esther Lynch told us why she thinks ’ is better at this score than any other European country. Belgium says there are more union workers in ’. He believes this makes them confident when they ask “ questions, complain that they will not be charged, victimized and removed from the company, that they will not be expelled from the company as troublemakers.
But it tells us about a case where two equivalent jobs he recently encountered were significant pay gaps. He blamed it on gender inequality at work. He tells us that a large part of the “ wage gap is related to the work women do, and that this alone is seen as the justification for the lower wage.
The wage transparency initiative will go a long way to helping improve the gender pay gap, but European countries still have a long way to go. The hope for the future is that women don't have to compromise to get to the top.
