European Central Bank blog analysis shows euro area gender earnings gap fell to 35% by 2023 but convergence is slowing

The European Central Bank published an ECB Blog analysis of gender gaps across euro area labour markets, using household-level EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions data and interactive country comparisons. It finds the gender gap in total earnings has narrowed materially, falling from 50% in 2005 to 35% in 2023, but the pace of improvement has slowed compared with earlier decades. The post attributes the earnings gap to three main components: employment participation, part-time work and hourly pay differences. The employment rate gap between women and men across today’s euro area countries fell to 9.0 percentage points by 2023 (from 27.8 percentage points in 1992), contributing to a reduction in the earnings gap as the employment-related component declined from 17.3 percentage points in 2005 to 10.5 percentage points in 2023. The part-time employment gap remains large at around 24 percentage points by 2024, accounting for 10.7 percentage points of the earnings gap in 2024 versus 14.1 percentage points in 2005, while the hourly pay gap stood at 13.4% in 2023 (down from 17.8% in 2005) with only a gradual average annual decline. The analysis also points to persistent unexplained pay differences after controls in some cases, citing Germany’s unexplained gap of 6% in 2024, and highlights cross-country variation, including smaller pay gaps in northern countries such as Finland and relatively equal patterns in the Baltic countries. It points to policy levers such as childcare investment and parental and paternity leave as well as measures aimed at occupational choices and workplace practices.