Women still 'disadvantaged', says EU employment chief

EU employment commissioner Vladimir Špidla has said that there is still a substantial pay gap between women and men.

Speaking at a conference in advance of international women’s day, Špidla said, “We shouldn’t sit on our laurels. Women are still disadvantaged compared to men. The 15 per cent pay gap perseveres.”

His comments came at the same time as a new report released by the international trade union confederation (ITUC), which has found that women are paid almost 16 per cent less than men.

The report, surveying 63 countries worldwide, also found that higher education of women does not necessarily lead to a smaller pay gap, and in some cases the gap actually increases with the level of education.

The commission released a directive on equal opportunities in 2006, which Špidla says “goes beyond employment and social affairs”, with the intent of integrating equality issues across the board of EU policies.

But Sharan Burrow, president of the ITUC, thinks that legislation often falls short of solving the problem.

“Despite decades of anti-discrimination legislation and changes in company rhetoric, the pay packets of women, whether they are in New York or Shanghai, are still significantly thinner than those of men.”

A report on women in decision-making released last year by the European commission found that women are outnumbered by men in the cabinets of EU governments by about three to one.

Although they represent 33 per cent of the European parliament, women make up only 23 per cent of national governments, with wide variations between member states.

Hungarian Socialist MEP Zita Gurmai asked a seminar on Wednesday, “The question is, what does the Lisbon agenda mean for us? Out of twelve million new jobs created, 7.5 million were for women. But these were not better jobs.”

Špidla says the commission will act this year to raise awareness about the gender pay gap, but says it’s down to EU governments to do the leg-work.

“We must make sure the Lisbon treaty is approved because it will strengthen the role of national parliaments in European legislation. In national parliaments, we must make sure gender mainstreaming takes place and not just at the European level.”

But Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, a Greek MEP and chair of the parliament’s high-level group on gender equality, says that the issue is more about cooperation between the European institutions.

“The approach has to be a collective one. It has to be done by all the institutions in a decisive way.

“Parliament can be satisfied with its number of MEPs. But this is not a recipe for automatic equality.

“The challenge we face is to try to incorporate the gender dimension into all the union’s policies.

“With the cooperation of other institutions, we will make equality a reality.”

International women’s day is celebrated every year on 8 March, which marks the day in 1908 when 15,000 women took to the streets of New York to demand shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. It was first celebrated by the Socialist party of America in 1909.

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