The Gender Pay Gap in the Balkans
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Although we’re in 2019, the gender pay gap is alive and going strong. The EU has a gender pay gap of 16,5%, which is a pretty high percentage. That’s why the European Commission marks the European Equal Pay Day every year, with the goal to raise awareness regarding the gender pay gap among member countries and its members, and its underlying causes.
Let’s see what’s the situation like in some Balkan countries:
Macedonia
On average, Macedonian women earn 12,5% less than men. However, if we compare men’s and women’s wages according to characteristics like education, experience, and skills, the difference goes up to 28,4% among people with no education or only primary education.
Recent research by IT.mk also showed that women in tech also get lower pay. For example, women software developers get pay of 53,080 denars on average, while men get 68,338. The largest difference is in the marketing sector, where women get 33,976 on average, while men get 60,942 denars.
This proves that women get less money for the same role and responsibilities. According to Finance Think, the reason for this large gap is the inactivity of women in the labor market. The website states that 46% of unemployed women aren’t even looking for a job, causing a distorted image of the gender pay gap.
When women’s inactivity would be eliminated, the real pay gap goes down to 7,5% for the same role and responsibilities. The results have shown that pay discrimination on the basis of gender goes between 5,4% and 9,8%.
You would think that women who choose to stay at home do it due to a lack of education, but that’s not the case. The research showed that they do it for different reasons — Macedonia is a traditional country and a lot of women believe that their role is to stay at home and take care of the house and the family.
Other reasons for the gender pay gap are discrimination and segregation of several professions. Unfortunately, people in Macedonia still perceive professions as men’s and women’s.
Motherhood also plays a major role in the large gap. Due to family responsibilities, women work part-time, don’t work overtime, and aren’t available to go on business trips.
Bulgaria
The gender pay gap in Bulgaria has been decreasing. In 2015, the percentage was 15,4%, falling down to 13,6% in 2017, which is below the EU average.
The Bulgarian Government has adopted policies to increase the presence of women in the labor market and to promote equal roles in decision-making. A report of the Government highlights fighting against gender-based violence and stereotypes as one of their major priorities. The country has come up with a Gender Equality Act, which focuses on regulating the institutional framework regarding the management of the gender equality policy, and will be focusing on implementing it in the following period.
Serbia
According to the latest data, Serbia’s gender pay gap is 16%, just like the EU average. 59,8% of employees are men, while 38,5% are women. On the other hand, women do much more work than men at home, spending 40 days per year at this unpaid job.
“The reason for the gender pay gap is that women tend to get jobs in sectors that have a smaller wage — the gap is primarily due to the choice of profession. Therefore, the number of women in much smaller in the IT sector, which is one of the best-paid ones,” Danica Todorov, a gender equality expert told Danas.rs.
According to her, over the generations, women have opted more for social professions and much less for more technical ones, which have better pay.
“Lately, we have more women with diplomas — 60% of graduates are women, but they choose law, economy, and social sciences. Besides, there are examples, and I know one of them when the employer didn’t want to hire a woman at the position of a mechanical engineer,” she adds. She’s unfamiliar with the reason, but she states that certain employers don’t want to hire women because they believe they’ll be more absent from work due to family responsibilities.
The Serbian Foundation for the development of economic sciences conducted research where they discovered that employed women in Serbia are more qualified than men. Yet, they earn less — for every 100 dinars that an average man earns, a woman earns 96,7 dinars.
Croatia
Paylab, an international payment portal has been following the movement of Croatia’s wages on different job positions. On average, men get 6% higher pays than women in the same positions.
Croatia’s reasons for the gender pay gap are almost the same as in other countries. The biggest reason is that women put their careers on hold when they have children. The need for a balance between family and work often puts them in a position where they must agree to a job that won’t require too much of their time. That’s the reason why they don’t go for managing positions as much as men do.
Another reason is that women are more present in job positions that pay less. For example, there are more women in administration, accountancy, health, social care, human resources, education, and pharmaceutical. Men are more represented in the sectors with the highest pays, like IT, management, transport and logistics, civil engineering, energy, telecommunications, industry, and technology. Art, culture, banking, marketing, and tourism are some sectors where the number of men and women employed is equal.
The EU
Just for comparison, Estonia has the highest gender pay gap in the EU — 25,3%. Czechia, Germany, and Great Britain are also close.
The EU is striving to eliminate the gender pay gap, but the European Commission still doesn’t have effective mechanisms that can fight this problem. European institutions currently rely only on accepting initiatives of individual EU representatives.
“Women and men are equal. It’s one of the core values of the EU. However, women work two months for free each year compared to their male colleagues. That’s a situation we can’t accept anymore,” EC Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourová, Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen and Vice President Frans Timmermans said.
One example worth mentioning is Island — the first country in the world to pass a law requiring companies to pay equal pay for men and women for the same work. In this country, companies with more than 25 employees have to hold a government certificate of equal pay for women and men. On the opposite, they have to pay a penalty.
What we can conclude is that on the Balkans, the role of the woman in big extent is to take care of the family, without great freedom to pursue a more challenging career.
We need to raise awareness with all members of society that urgent changes need to happen. Women should be free to choose any career they want to without stereotypes, and more importantly, without the fear that they will be paid less.
