Despite years of efforts to achieve equality, the wage gap between women and men in Germany remains constant: women earn an average of 18 percent less per hour than men.
The wage gap between women and men in the German labor market did not narrow last year. At an average of 20.84 euros, women in Germany earned around 18 percent less per hour than men, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office.
This “unadjusted gender pay gap” was also 18 percent in the previous year. Over the years, the gender pay gap has narrowed somewhat; in 2006 it was still 23 percent.
The statistics office explains almost two thirds of the wage gap with higher part-time rates and lower salaries in jobs typical of women. There remains an adjusted gap (adjusted gender pay gap) of around 6 percent of gross hourly wages without a clear explanation.
Even with comparable jobs, qualifications and employment histories, women earn 6 percent less than men. The authority suspects that interruptions in employment, for example during pregnancy, to raise children or to care for relatives, play a role here, but these are not recorded in more detail.
However, the statistics clearly show that gross hourly earnings drift more apart from the age of 30 onwards. At this age, many women have children and interrupt their working lives. While hourly wages for women remained almost stagnant throughout their working lives, they continued to rise regularly for men. The unadjusted wage gap was around 8 percent for 30-year-olds and 27 percent for employees between 57 and 61 years old.
Source: Stern
