Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-17-Speech-1-109"
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"en.20081117.22.1-109"2
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".
The gender pay gap is nothing new. For more than fifty years there has been an article in the Treaty of Rome forbidding gender discrimination in levels of pay and since 1975 Directive 117 has been in force, which requires Member States to enforce the principle of equal pay for equal work. It is of course true that not all differences in pay result from discrimination. According to the law of large numbers, however, the persistent differences in gross hourly rates of pay are not explainable.
Between 1995 and 2006, according to Eurostat, the differences based on hourly earnings fell from 17 to 15%, and this is at a time when the majority of university graduates are now women.
The trend may be declining, but not in a straight line. According to a study from the Dublin Foundation in 2007 covering four countries in the European Union, the gap was actually widening. If the pay gap narrowed at the current pace and did not increase again from time to time, pay would perhaps equalise after seventy years.
We can agree on the fact that the current legislation in this area is not very effective. The reasons for the pay gap are varied. They are of both a systemic and an individual nature. Sectoral, vertical and horizontal segregation, the classification of professions, the conditions for establishing a work-life balance and stereotypes all play a significant role in the persistence of the pay gap, which later carries over into a pensions gap and the final result is that poverty wears a female face, as we have been saying.
The pay gap also has individual dimensions. According to a study from the Commission, these increase with age, period of employment and education. Moreover, the statistics show that there are minimal differences in the case of young people. The gap appears after the birth of the first child and the return of the woman from maternity leave.
In relation to the demographic crisis now confronting us, this problem, besides being a major factor in economic competition, raises a profound moral problem which should also not be overlooked.
The question today concerns what the European Parliament can do to resolve the situation. On the one hand we have a persistent problem and on the other hand we have some rather ineffective laws. At the same time, of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that the reasons for the pay gap lie far beyond the bounds of legislation.
The European Parliament, however, has in its hands only one instrument – legislation. Everyone involved in this situation bears their own responsibility and ours is whether we can manage to send out a clear signal that we want better and more effective laws in the interests of establishing fairer conditions in the labour market."@en1
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