| Abstract: |
Today, our thoughts go out to all women who have had to flee Ukraine to escape
horror and to save their children, and to all those women who have remained
behind to help defend their homeland. To those men and women who have the
chance to live in (still) peaceful EU countries, we want to recall that gender
equality remains a top priority. In the EU, major progress has been made in
advancing women’s rights over the past 25 years but challenges still remain,
especially on the labour market. The gender pay gap is definitely not yet
closed. Despite progress over the past few years, women in the EU are still
paid less than men for equal work of equal value. In 2018, the gap was on
average 14 %, and it is likely to have increased during the pandemic. In 2019,
President von der Leyen put gender equality among the six priorities of her
new Commission. In March 2021 the Commission published a proposal for a
Directive to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for
equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay
transparency and enforcement mechanisms. Is pay transparency important to
close the gender pay gap? The short answer is yes. Over time women have been
closing gaps relative to men in education, labour market participation, and
attitude; areas which typically (used to) explain the gap. Yet pay differences
persist. New research points to within-company dynamics as one of the most
significant contributors to the pay gap. The directive proposes to address it
through transparency and information sharing. This is expected to reduce the
gender pay gap, even though the implementation, and in particular the
operationalisation of the concept of equal work, will pose challenges to
companies, and eventually can negatively weigh on the overall benefits. |