According to the last UGT Union’s wage discrimination’s report, the gap between men’s and women’s wages in Spain rose again by the end of 2012 until reaching the 23.9%, the highest in the last five years. This report also highlights that Catalonia has a pay gap above the Spanish average: 24.8%.
Taking this into account, a female worker should work 79 days more a year to earn the same salary as a man doing a work of equal value and should contribute about 11 and a half years longer than a man for the same pension.
The report also shows how the general fall in wages has directly affected the increasement of the wage gap and reports that nearly four million women, 44.55% of the Spanish female workers, get wages below € 15,000 gross per year.
The wage gap increases to 24% when speaking of annual gross salary and it even grows when the part-time variable is added, since women with this type of contracts earn 33.7% less than men.
In terms of sectors, the most pronounced growth in the wages gap has affected public services: for instance, in the education sector, wage differences have risen by 7.6%. In general, however, the highest increasements are in the category “other services” with a pay gap of 36.1%. It is followed by the administrative and support activities (33.2%); professional, scientific and technical activities (31.6%), and in health and social services (30.33%).
This inequality also affects unemployment benefits, as, while the average amount recognized for men recipients of unemployment benefits is 29.84 euros a day, women beneficiaries get 25,35 euros per day, that is, around 85% of the average amount received by men.
European Equal Pay Day
This report has been released on the occasion of February 22, the European Equal Pay Day. This Day was established following a report made by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament in 2010, that showed that women had to work 53 days more than men for the same pay; ie, a woman would need a year of 418 days, until February 22, to get the same salary as a man.
While the Treaty of Rome, at the base of the European Union, incorporates as one of its fundamental principles the equal pay for male and female workers, reports such as the UGT one shows that we still have a long way to go in order to achieve it.
The analysis of this phenomenon is complicated due the multitude of causes that lead to it and that are mainly indirect inequalities; women have lower paid jobs, less protected, more temporary and less socially valued. Moreover, when it comes to direct discrimination (unequal pay for equal work), it is more visible and easy to denounce.
