Data school of Statistics Estonia: Who wants to earn women’s salary?
-
Data Scientist, Statistics Estonia
-
Social Statistics Team Leader
-
Experimental Statistics Team Leader
What does Statistics Estonia know about men’s and women’s salaries and how is the notorious gender pay gap calculated?
In order to find the pay gap, it is calculated how much men and women working in Estonia on average earn per hour, before income tax. Then, the average gross hourly wage of female employees is subtracted from the average gross hourly wage of male employees. The resulting sum is divided by the average gross hourly wage of male employees. A pay gap of 17.7% means that, on average, women earn 17.7% less per hour than men.
Gender pay gap demonstrates the situation of many different social processes. The pay gap is, among other things, caused by gender stereotypes and gender roles that still exist in society, and push girls and boys to acquire different professions. As a result, girls are more likely to go into the low-paid social sector, while boys end up in the high-paid IT sector.
Unfortunately, the statistics of recent years have shown that Estonia is consistently at the top of the pay gap ranking table in Europe. The pay gap in Lithuania is two times smaller than in Estonia. In the light of this, we can ask ourselves: are Lithuanian men and women and the work they do really so much different from those in Estonia?