Brussels, 02/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - Women still earn less than men in the European Union. On the second European Equal Pay Day (Friday 2 March 2012), the European Commission published the latest pay gap figures, showing that in 2010, women earned 16.4% less on average than men in the EU27, slightly higher than the previous year, when they earned 17% less. There are huge gaps within the EU, however, with the women's pay gap ranging from 2% in Poland to more than 27% in Estonia. The Commission raised awareness of the matter on the second Equal Pay Day in a bid to remove the pay gap.
The European Women's Lobby (EWL) is keen to draw attention to the fact that the pay gap has an even worse long-term impact by leading to reduced retirement pensions and a far higher risk of poverty for women in old age (20% of elderly women are exposed to serious poverty in Europe). The EWL has asked the European Commission to draw up a European indicator to measure the gap between men's pensions and women's pensions, a gap which is more like a gulf, going by statistics collected in Germany, where women receive a 60% lower pension than men. Such a huge level of inequality is partly due to the fact that women are paid less than men and therefore also contribute less towards their pensions. Moreover, women remain out of the labour market for longer in order to bring up children and look after family members, for example, and are also more likely to be working part-time or in low paid jobs because of their childcare responsibilities and so on.
For this reason, Cécile Gréboval, Secretary General of the EWL, says that the European Commission should take a closer look at the problem. She explains that it is well-known that women suffer long-term negative consequences from the pay gap when they retire, but the statistics are not available to examine this in detail. It is time to start measuring and monitoring the gap between men's and women's pensions in order to avoid sacrificing yet another generation of elderly women.
The EWL is particularly unhappy that the EU has not come up with any mechanism to deal with this situation, despite the fact that ageing and retirement pensions are on the European agenda and the European Commission recognises that gender inequality is a problem when it comes to pension systems.
On Monday 5 March, the European Commission will, however, be publishing a report on progress in increasing the numbers of women on management boards and leading jobs in Europe. At the European Parliament on Women's Day (8 March), the women's rights and gender equality committee is organising a conference on equal pay for equal work, which will be addressed by the president of the EP, Martin Schulz. (MD/transl.fl)