As member states scramble to transpose the Pay Transparency Directive, the biggest drivers of women’s lower earnings such as part-time work, motherhood penalties and male-dominated sectors, remain stubbornly untouched.
Léa Marchal
Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.
EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
Has it ever happened to you to discover, after months of working in your role, that your colleague is receiving a higher salary for the same job? If you’re a woman, there is a high chance the answer is yes.
But don’t worry, the European Union is changing that thanks to the Pay Transparency Directive, which just became mandatory everywhere in Europe.
Is it for real? What will truly change in your country?
If you’re a woman and you’re living in Spain, you’re likely to earn 20 percent less than your male compatriots. If you work in the public sector, you’re in luck: this gap narrows to 8.8 percent; however, if you work in the private sector, it is likely to be around 30 percent. In other words, your male teammate could be earning about a third more than you for similar work.
These are the latest figures reported by the Spanish news outlet El Salto.
Back in February, our colleagues in the Sphera network had already noted that women earn four thousand seven hundred euros less per year. This is based on 2023 data from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics.
As you are probably aware, Spain is not an isolated case. In 2024, Eurostat quantified the gap between women’s and men’s average annual earnings across all EU countries, and the results are very clear.
On average across Europe, this gender pay gap stands at 11 percent. And in some countries, such as Estonia, the Czech Republic, and Austria, it rises above 17 percent.
Who are the ones performing well in that regard? Belgium, where the gap is less than one percent, and Luxembourg, where women earn 0.8 percent more than men.
But for the others, what do we do about it?
In 2023, the EU adopted a directive on pay transparency in order to reduce the gender pay gap, among other things.
So what does the text say?
Basically, money will no longer be a taboo subject.
And as explained by the Italian media outlet VD News, also a member of the Sphera Network, it will start right from the moment you are looking for a new job.
Because for all job vacancies, employers will now be required to state the pay range and will no longer be allowed to ask candidates about their previous pay— the aim being to avoid perpetuating past injustices, such as those based on gender.
Once in post, employees will be able to ask to see the average pay levels within their company, broken down by gender, for people performing work of equal value.
Plus, the employer will be required to provide the objective and non-discriminatory criteria used to set pay levels.
However, it will not be possible to find out a colleague’s exact salary. So it will all rely on average pay levels.
What if it appears to be discriminatory?
Should an average pay gap of at least five percent emerge between women and men that cannot be justified, companies will have six months to rectify the situation. Otherwise, they will face financial penalties.
Since 7 June, all member states are supposed to have adopted legislation to apply these new rules. Did they do so?
So far, only a few countries have started implementing the directive, among them Belgium—with the lowest gender pay gap in the EU—and Poland, where it stands at four percent.
In Italy, Slovakia, and Lithuania, new legislation has just come into force. And most of the other Member States have published draft legislation or are in the process of modifying existing legislation.
Meaning they are a little late, but it should be on track.
In the next few years, this new legal framework is expected to improve the situation for women workers.
But its implementation alone won’t entirely solve the gender pay gap issue. As noted by Natalia Arias Pérez, an economist interviewed by El Salto: Because pay discrimination for equal work and equal skills is just one of the factors behind the gender pay gap in society, there are still many other measures to put in place to achieve actual equality.
“To put an end to the widespread use of involuntary part-time work for women, tackle discrimination and penalties linked to motherhood and care responsibilities, take action on wage supplements—more easily attributed to men—and improve women’s integration into higher-paying sectors.”
