Economic crisis and gender pay gap in Spain

Published by S. Mally, March 2011, Barcelona (Spain)

The gender pay gap in Spain is decreasing!

But this data does not mean that there is less wage discrimination in the country. At the contrary, it is just that the crisis has affected more men than women because men represent the biggest part of the Spanish working population. The wage approximation is not due to a better professional recognition of women and a therefore higher wage but to a decrease in the men’s salary.

Furthermore, the crisis is also stopping previous advances: for the time being there are only at about 12% of women directors in Spanish companies, compared to 19% in 2008, and the number of female chief executives has just increased in 4 points since 2008. Spanish women are also presenting a higher unemployment rate than men and they are still abandoning their jobs to be mothers.

Due to the fact that these data do not differ so much from the European average, the European Commission wants to strengthen sanctions for the case of violations of the equal pay right, improve the transparency in terms of wages and favour the incorporation of women in boards of directors.