Gender Pay Gap

“The income of female workers across the world will lag behind men’s for another 70 years if the gender pay gap continues to reduce at the present painfully slow rate”. (Topping, 2015)

Today, several complex factors cause disproportional wages between men and women. Mostly women are disadvantaged in this pay gap, which continues to show the discrimination against women in the workplace. The exact percentage of difference of wage varies throughout Europe and mainly deviates from sector to sector. However, also within the same sector a discrepancy is possible or even how an employee combines work with family life is one of the factors. (Fronteddu, 2014)

Firstly, the pay gap between men and women varies between different sectors, this is called a sectoral or horizontal segregation. For instance, the gap is lower in the public sector than in the private sector, with a few exceptions. Moreover, women often work in lower valued and lower paid positions. An example is the healthcare sector which is mostly dominated by women. Other examples of mostly female-dominated

The vertical segregation of the labor market is also called the occupational segregation. It shows that women, more often than men, occupy lower paid positions. Closely associated to the glass ceiling, it seems that women are often hired as low- or unskilled workers. Thus, statistics clearly show that the proportion of men – women managerial and senior positions is unbalanced in favor of the men. (Foubert, 2010) Also, compared to 75 % of the men, only 61% of women expect a bonus. This shows the lack of confidence women have in their achievements in the workplace. (Hutchison, 2015) Moreover, a study in the United States of America showed that women of color earned even less than white and Asian women for the same job, which means race is another factor that contributes to the wage gap. (Hill,