Today, February 14th, not only marks the annual celebration of love, but also Equal Pay Day: only on this day have women reached the salary that men had already earned by December 31, 2023. This is what the nonprofit communicates Association Equal Pay, which positions itself as an initiative for income equality.
According to this, the income difference in Austria is on average 12.4 percent. That’s 45 working days per year on which women symbolically work for free. In other words, women work for free from the beginning of the year until February 14th so that at the end of the year they can reach the same salary as their male colleagues from the previous year.
It should be noted: these are income differences on average. The professional group of civil servants has already achieved equal pay, as has the Equal Pay association communicated. In contrast, employed women earn on average 29 percent less than men – the equivalent of 19,205 euros per year.
Equal Pay Day just happened, right?
Yes, on October 31, 2023. This day is not for the Equal Pay association, but for that Women’s service portal of the Federal Chancellery dated as Equal Pay Day. Its comparative size is slightly different.
On October 31, 2023, Austria’s men who were employed all year round had already reached the income for which women had to work until the end of 2023. The average pay difference was 16.9 percent and corresponded to a period of 62 calendar days.
If you take a look at the two equal pay days, we are talking about a noticeably different number, namely: 45 days and 12.4 percent pay difference according to the Equal Pay association compared to 62 calendar days and 16.9 percent pay difference according to the Federal Chancellery’s women’s service portal .
The gender gaps are visibly different according to these two types of calculation. This is not due to inaccuracy, but rather to other reference variables, explains economist Monika Köppl-Turyna, who has been director of the Eco Austria Institute for Economic Research since 2020:
“Do men earn more or women earn less?”
“You can calculate the difference between two quantities in two ways. In the case of Equal Pay Day, this is either the comparison to men’s wages or the comparison to women’s wages,” explains Köppl-Turyna and continues: “All of these expressions are equivalent. It’s more about the question: What question do I want to answer?”
To understand the calculation of the gender pay gap on which the dating of the Equal Pay Day is based, Köppl-Turyna explains: “In the vanilla version, we compare everyone to everyone in the gender gap. We can use two options: Does a man earn more or a woman earns more,” says the expert.
It’s not part time’s fault, is it?
“If we calculate the gender gap based only on full-time employees all year round and adjust it for part-time employees, it is definitely smaller than if we include part-time employees. This shows that the main reason for the unadjusted gender pay gap is part-time work. And subsequently: having children,” explains Köppl-Turyna.
“This is not only the case in Austria, but all over the world. In Austria, however, the effect of having children and working part-time is higher than in many other countries,” explains the expert. The reasons for this include conservative social norms or a lack of childcare places – especially for parents who work full-time.
Köppl-Turyna knows from her work as director at Eco Austria that around a quarter of women in Austria without children work part-time. For women with children it is 80 percent. In addition, part-time jobs often have lower hourly wages than full-time jobs in the same job – and this creates differences in income, says the expert.
Nevertheless, Köppl-Turyna warns against calculating wage differences based on “same work tasks” because: “The gender pay gap is often an expression of imperfect measurement of what people actually do in their job. This is often ignored in the discussion. In order for us to really say: men and women do exactly the same work – we need to know a lot. And we often don’t come to this knowledge.”
Reevaluation of jobs required
In light of Equal Pay Day, Christa Kirchmair, President of the Equal Pay Association, points out the gender pay gap, which exists despite the adjustment for part-time workers. According to Kirchmair, this is an average annual rate Income difference of 6,189 euros for women working full-time.
In contrast to brutkasten, the Equal Pay President calls for women to be placed in leading positions and for the creation of a framework for gender equality in companies. This includes re-evaluating jobs in order to create better comparability.
Kirchmair also aims to end the structural disadvantage of stereotypically female professional groups such as cosmetics, trade, education or nursing. Meanwhile, she appeals to managers, companies and politicians to increase sensitivity and reduce conservative social norms.
“A gender gap is not proof of discrimination”
The moral of the Equal Pay Day story: According to economist Köppl-Turyna, part-time work and having children play a larger role than is often assumed. Different methods of calculating the equal pay day are not inaccurate or different, but are equivalent and calculated using different reference values. It is therefore always important to keep the comparison size in mind and ask yourself: Are men’s or women’s salaries the starting point? What does part-time work and having children mean at work? To what extent are the “same” jobs actually comparable?
Köppl-Turyna, however, warns against saying that a gender pay gap is evidence of discrimination: “Discrimination also occurs when there is no gender pay gap and vice versa. The gender pay gap is not an indicator of whether gender discrimination exists or not.”