Gender Pay Gap in the EU: Selected Factors Analysis

“Equal pay for equal work” is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union. However, statistical surveys show that in EU countries the wages differences between men and women are 18% on average. Segregation at the labor market is usually considered at two levels as horizontal segregation and vertical segregation. The point if the horizontal segregation is that women tend to be found in similar occupational groups and economic sectors, whatever the country or culture concerned. Such situation is the result of the stereotype that women are not suited to perform the same jobs as men because they are lack of the physical strength, they are less available and they lack of the required competences/skills. Vertical segregation concerns to situation that women are concentrated at the lower or intermediate levels of hierarchies and professions, and are represented significantly less than men at senior level.

The most popular measure that describing wages differences is Gender Pay Gap (GPG). It represents the difference between average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees and of female paid employees as a percentage of average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees.

Presented analysis is based on the Eurostat data collected within the framework of Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) in years 2002 and 2006 and it is provided for the EU member states. The aim of the research is to identify labor market areas, where the payment inequalities are minimal or maximal. There are defined profiles of labor areas that are characterized by two factors from the following collection: type of company (branch), education area, age, profession and size of company. The following tools will be applied:

• descriptive statistical tools to analyze data,
• conjoint analysis and synthetic taxonomic measures to construct groups of labor areas from the point of view of gender discrimination at the labor market.