The pay gap between men and women in our country has halved between 2010 and 2020. This is evident on Monday from figures from the Belgian statistical office Statbel, on the occasion of International Women’s Day Tuesday.
In 2020, women earned an average of 5.3 percent less per hour than men. The higher the age, the higher the pay gap: in the 25-34 age group the pay gap is 3.4 percent, in the 55-64 age group it rises to 8.9 percent. In ten years’ time, the pay gap in our country has therefore almost halved. In 2010, women earned on average 10.2 percent less per hour than men.
Belgium is doing better than most of the other European countries. The average pay gap in Europe is 13 percent. Only Luxembourg (0.7 percent), Romania (2.4 percent), Slovenia (3.1 percent), Italy (4.2 percent) and Poland (4.5 percent) do better than Belgium.
Belgium scores better on average
A comparison by consultant PwC Belgium also shows that our country is doing well compared to other countries when it comes to the pay gap: Belgium scores significantly better than the average within the countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But the pandemic has ensured that in 2020 fewer women entered the labor market and more women were unemployed. “On average, COVID-19 delayed progress on gender equality in the workplace by at least two years,” argues PwC.
And figures from the self-employed organization NSZ show that in 2020 women who work as self-employed still earned 30 percent less than their male colleagues. The self-employed organization points to various reasons, such as the greater presence of women in sectors where you can earn less and the proportionally larger number of women in secondary occupations.
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