Light years from equality
The wage gap between genders increased with the financial crisis but has not fallen with recovery; transparency and laws are only part of the solution
We are light-years from Germany, which has just passed a law that requires the salaries of workers with the same job to be made public, and even Iceland, where companies must demonstrate that there is no gender discrimination in the workplace. The crisis accentuated the wage gap between men and women which has climbed to 26%, but even though the latest official figures are from 2014, it appears that the economic recovery is not reducing inequality but underlining that this is a structural problem. Some countries are reacting.
“The main difference between our country and the Nordic countries is that in those countries there was a radical change on all fronts; educational, business and legislative, showing that promoting innovative laws is useless if there is no change of mentality,” reflects Eada professor Aline Masuda. “In Iceland, the values of equality are deeply rooted and it is culturally accepted, for example, that parents reduce working hours to care for children, however the downside is that is it is nearly always the woman and this prevents future promotion.”
In Catalonia, salaries of female directors are 18% lower than for men, while the gap in the case of the employees is 12%. Women occupy just over 13% of management positions. In Spain, says Generalitat equality director Mireia Mata, there is a project under discussion related to transparency in salaries, but it there is much to do. Meanwhile, she says the Generalitat continues legislating, but the Constitutional Court has annulled articles of the laws trying to go further in regulating equality plans, SMEs and creating the role of an Equality Commissioner.