Women in the European Union Earn 16% Less than Men

Women in the European Union still earn on average 16% less than men, a slight improvement from last year's 16.2%. This year the European Equal Pay Day falls on 4 November. It marks the day when women symbolically stop getting paid compared to their male colleagues for the same job.

Ahead of this symbolic day, First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen and Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová stated:

"It is 60 years since the equal pay principle was written into the European Treaties, and yet women across Europe still don't see the laws matching the reality of their daily lives. European women still work for two months for free compared to their male colleagues and the progress is too slow.

While we have made some steps in the right direction in the past five years, more needs to be done and faster. Our citizens expect us to do better.

Nine out of ten Europeans - women and men - think that it is unacceptable that women are paid less than men for the same job.

Knowledge is power, and therefore, the more we can improve transparency around the underlying causes of the pay gap, the better we will be able to tackle it. The pay transparency is important, so we can detect cases of pay discrimination and the employees and customers can draw their own conclusions and take action. In fact, 64% of Europeans have stated that they are in favour of the publication of average wages by job type and gender at their company.

Pay transparency, combined with other solutions such as an equal distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men - enabled by new EU Directive on...