2024-03-10 00:32:13
Despite many efforts, the wage gap between men and women still exists. In some industries this involves several thousand euros.
Women in Germany still earn significantly less than men. There are clear differences between the different industries. This emerges from an evaluation by the employer rating platform kununu, which is available exclusively to t-online.
The biggest difference is seen by women who work in the financial sector or telecommunications. They each earn 23 percent less than men in the same industries. While men in the financial sector go home with an average annual gross of 58,746 euros, for women it is only 44,973 euros. In telecommunications, men earn 53,715 euros, while women earn 41,620 euros.
Data basis
For the evaluation, kununu evaluated 1,214,564 gross full-time salaries in Germany from the period from January 1st, 2021 to December 31st, 2023. A minimum of 1,000 salary details was defined per industry and gender.
There are also large wage differences in the insurance industry (20 percent) and in tax consulting and auditing (20 percent). This is followed by consulting, medicine and pharmaceuticals and the banking sector, each with a salary difference of 18 percent.
At the bottom of the list, which corresponds to a relatively smaller difference in annual gross, are public administration (9 percent), human resources and procurement (6 percent) and transport and logistics (5 percent).
All industries included in the evaluation can be found in this table:
Embed
Different calculation of the wage gap
The wage gap between men and women is also known as the gender pay gap. A distinction is made between the unadjusted and adjusted gender pay gap. The unadjusted gender pay gap refers to the difference in gross wages per hour between men and women. This is currently 18 percent. For the unadjusted gender pay gap, taking qualifications, activities and employment histories into account. Structural factors have therefore largely been eliminated. This was recently at 6 percent. Here you can read more about it.
Variety of reasons
There are several possible explanations for the salary differences. The Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth writes on its website: “Women choose different careers than men.” They therefore work more often in social and personal services that are paid less than, for example, technical professions.
In addition, many women have interrupted employment histories that require them to take time off work to raise children. Afterwards, many return with reduced hours. 47 percent of women who are subject to social security contributions work part-time. Almost 62 percent of all so-called mini-jobs are carried out by women. The care gap exacerbates these problems.
Women are pessimistic about the future
The inequality is not only reflected in statistics, many women in Germany also feel it in their everyday lives. As a representative survey by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of the job exchange Indeed showed, 57 percent of women believe that they are not paid enough. This puts Germany close to the international average: among those surveyed from eleven countries, 56 percent of employees were dissatisfied with their pay.
According to the “Work needs Women Report”, every second woman in Germany is pessimistic about a gender-equal future. 53 percent believe that equal pay for men and women will only be realistic in 50 years.