Women's employment and wages at the senior positions in the EU states

Eurobarometer research pointed out two negative phenomena: violence against the women and wage inequality between women and men. Gender equality is a policy objective of basically universal acceptance and it becomes a subject of interest in many national governments, international organizations, research institutes and political pressure groups. The Strategy for Equality between Women and Men (2010-2015) was adopted by European Commission on 21 September 2010. Also The United Nations Millennium Declaration promulgates the pursuit of gender equality as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals to be reached by 2015. Problems of women’s participation in the labor market became one of the main issues in current discussions because of the financial – economic crisis and aging of the societies in developed countries.

Vertical segregation (“glass ceiling”) is pertinant to the issue Women are represented significantly less than men at senior levels (they are concentrated at the lower or intermediate levels of hierarchies and professions). Many studies indicated that this phenomenon is common in many EU states (see i.e. Arulampalam et al. 2006, Christofides et al. 2010). Data collected by Eurostat indicated that in 2006 in the midst of managers about 33%  are women and they earned 69% of men’s remuneration on average at this (senior) level.

The main aim of the present research is to analyze and compare men’s and women’s employment and wages at the senior levels in the selected EU states. Analyses were based on the individual data collected within the framework of Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) in 2006. Descriptive statistical tools and tests were applied.

Key words:labor market, wages differences, structure of employment, Structure of Earning Survey, Gender Pay Gap, senior position

JEL: C10, J31