For the gender pay gap, the average gross hourly earnings of women and men in the private sector are compared. In Austria this fell from 22.9 percent to 18.4 percent between 2012 and 2022. On average in the EU it fell from 16.4 to 12.7 percent over the same period. For comparison: the gender pay gap is highest in Estonia, just behind Austria are the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia, each with values over 17 percent. At the other end, men and women in Luxembourg earn practically the same amount – here the wage difference is even slightly in favor of women at 0.7 percent.
At the same time, however, a small gender pay gap does not necessarily mean better integration of women into the labor market. For example, despite the small wage difference, Italy has the lowest employment rate for women at 51.1 percent – Statistics Austria explains this by saying that there are fewer low-skilled women in the workforce there. As a result, the overall wage difference between women and men would be smaller. However, there are also countries with a high female employment rate and yet a below-average gender pay gap, such as Sweden.
Only partially explainable
According to Statistics Austria, around a third of the high wage difference in Austria can be explained, the rest remains unexplained. Factors are that women more often work in lower-paying industries and professions. Differences in working hours are generally already taken into account by using hourly earnings – but part-time workers are also paid less per hour on average, which affects women more than men. In addition, women are employed in the company for a shorter period of time on average. Training, on the other hand, plays no role – on the contrary: if it were up to it, women would have to earn more than men.
Above-average employment
The employment rate of 15 to 64-year-old women in Austria in 2022 was 70 percent (men 78 percent), above the EU average of 64.9 percent (men 74.7 percent). When it comes to part-time employment among women, Austria had a share of 50.7 percent – which means that more than half of women work part-time. This is the second highest value after the Netherlands and well above the EU average of 29.1 percent.
