Members of the European Parliament are urging the European Commission to improve existing EU legislation to close the gender pay gap, including stricter sanctions on employers, in an upcoming vote.
“After almost 40 years of obviously ineffective legislation, Member States have only made small changes to their own legislation to tackle the gender pay gap and sanctions are not being imposed on employers,” said Edit Bauer, author of the resolution, before the vote.
The request for a legislative proposal, which has been adopted by a qualified majority, points out that the gender pay gap still averages 16.4% in the EU, and in some Member States has even widened.
The proposal calls on the Commission to propose new measures to reduce inequality in pay between the sexes through all relevant EU policies and national programmes and for national governments to step up cooperation and develop new ideas to tackle the gender pay gap.
The causes are complex and often interrelated. They include discrimination, highly segregated labour markets, an undervaluing of ‘women’s’ work, tradition and stereotyping, not least in the choice of educational paths.
The gap is widest in Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia and narrowest in Belgium, Italy, Malta and Slovenia, according to Eurostat figures.
