As women in France begin working for free starting at 15:35pm (3:35pm) on November 6 due to the country’s gender pay gap, some European nations are tackling wage disparity head-on while companies say more women are good for the bottom line.
Across the EU, women are paid an average of 16.2 percent less than men, meaning they work for free for almost two months out of the year.
The date on which European women begin working for free – known as Equal Pay Day – is calculated according to the most recent gender pay gap figures from Eurostat (the EU statistics agency) and varies from country to country. Women across Europe began working for free on November 3, while French women will mark this day on Tuesday. For British women it falls slightly later, on November 10.
French women’s groups, including the Fondation des Femmes (Women’s Foundation) and Les Glorieuses (The Glorious), are promoting the #6Novembre15h35 hashtag on Twitter to mark the moment and bring attention to the gender wage gap.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) issues a Global Gender Gap Report each year, ranking 144 countries according to the disparity between women and men in sectors such as education, health, the economy and political life. Its most recent report found that overall inequality is narrowing but that progress has slowed: At current rates it will take 100 years to close the gender gap, compared to the 83 years estimated in 2016. The economic gender gap remains the most persistent and will likely not be closed for another 217 years.
Nordic countries tend to rank well on equality, with Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden all in the top five, joined by Rwanda in fourth place.
The WEF reports also found that countries with nationwide policies on flexible parental leave, mid-career breaks and working remotely “tend to do well” on closing the income gap.
Offering public care services for older people and nurseries for the young children of working parents has also been found to be effective at minimising wage disparity.
Perhaps surprisingly, the more women achieve, the wider the pay gap they face. While in OECD countries women are paid 16 percent less than men on average, the highest female earners are paid 21 percent less than their male colleagues. There are also fewer of them in senior management, with only one woman calling the shots for every 10 men, the OECD found in its seminal 2012 report, Closing the Gender Gap.
The WEF’s Leopold also noted that encouraging cooperation between the public and private sectors can be useful in tackling the gender gap. The private sector can play an important role in promoting change “across supply chains, industries, communities and wider society”, he noted.
The World Economic Forum is currently working with the French government and the private sector to set up what Leopold called a “Closing the Gender Gap Task Force” in France that would “provide a platform for public-private collaborative action” in this arena.
Les Glorieuses say they won’t let up until women have an equal place in French society.
“The fight against wage inequality is not a frivolous struggle aimed at robbing men of their privilege. It represents the determination of feminists to demand equality,” the group says on its website.
“Without economic equality, there can be no social equality, no political equality. And we will not stop until that is the case.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the more women achieve, the wider the pay gap they face. While in OECD countries women are paid 16 percent less than men on average, the highest female earners are paid 21 percent less than their male colleagues. There are also fewer of them in senior management, with only one woman calling the shots for every 10 men, the OECD found in its seminal 2012 report, Closing the Gender Gap.
The WEF’s Leopold also noted that encouraging cooperation between the public and private sectors can be useful in tackling the gender gap. The private sector can play an important role in promoting change “across supply chains, industries, communities and wider society”, he noted.
The World Economic Forum is currently working with the French government and the private sector to set up what Leopold called a “Closing the Gender Gap Task Force” in France that would “provide a platform for public-private collaborative action” in this arena.
Les Glorieuses say they won’t let up until women have an equal place in French society.
“The fight against wage inequality is not a frivolous struggle aimed at robbing men of their privilege. It represents the determination of feminists to demand equality,” the group says on its website.
“Without economic equality, there can be no social equality, no political equality. And we will not stop until that is the case.”
The European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) has adopted 15 decisions on state compliance with the right to equal pay, as well as the right to equal opportunities in the workplace, following complaints which were lodged within the framework of the collective complaints procedure by the international NGO University Women Europe (UWE). The decisions concern the 15 States which have accepted the complaints procedure (Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden). The decisions were adopted by the ECSR on 5 and 6 December 2019 and became public on 29 June 2020.
