Women in the EU earn 13% less than men on average, meaning they symbolically stop getting paid for the year on November 15th. This day, known as European Equal Pay Day, aims to raise awareness about the ongoing gender pay gap. The EU Commission notes that the current disparity translates to a difference of around one and a half months of salary per year.
Despite some progress in recent years, with women’s employment rising by 2.9 percentage points and the gender pay gap declining by 1.5 percentage points over the past five years, significant barriers remain. One contributing factor is the underrepresentation of women in higher-paying sectors, such as technology and infrastructure. In 2024, women made up only 28.2% of the STEM workforce, according to the World Economic Forum’s annual report.
Raising awareness of wage disparity
However, there has been some improvement in AI engineering talent, with the share of female AI professionals increasing significantly over the past four years. Commissioners Věra Jourová, Nicolas Schmit, and Helena Dalli stated, “We have made strides toward closing gender disparities.” They urge Member States to fully implement the Pay Transparency Directive, which aims to ensure pay transparency for jobseekers, give employees the right to pay information, require reporting on the gender pay gap, and introduce joint pay assessments.
Another challenge is the lack of care options and structures to balance professional and personal commitments. The formal care workforce is predominantly female (90%), and 7.7 million women are out of employment due to insufficient care services. The European Union continues to face difficulties in promoting gender equality, but efforts and legislative measures are underway to address these disparities and support women in achieving fair compensation for their work.
Progress has been slow, with only a 3-percentage point gap reduction since 2014, but the EU is working to close this pay gap through new legislation and monitoring its implementation.
