PwC analysis: The gender pay gap in Romania is 21.6% in favour of men

The gender pay gap continues to be high in Romania, namely 21.6% in favour of men, shows the analysis ‘Equal Pay Gender’, made by PwC Romania on the basis of the data collected in a Paywell survey.According to the quoted source, in 2023, the gap is calculated as a ratio of men’s to women’s average earnings, and against the previous edition of the analysis, from 2022, it has dropped by 1.7 percentage points.Depending on the industries where they work, the highest pay gaps in favour of men are the sectors: banking – 30.5%, pharma – 16.5%, retail – 15.27% and technology – 11.92%. A different situation is met in production and BPO/SSC where the rate is reversed, of -7.02%, namely – 0.11%.The specialty analysis shows, at the same time ,that the highest gaps, reported to the positions they occupy, are for operators, of 19.64% and the lowest at top management of 6.09%.At the same time, another PwC report – Workforce Hopes and Fears 2023, says that there is a significant gap between the share of requirements for salary growth on the part of men and women, of 21 percentage points, namely promotions, of eight percentage points."While there has been significant progress over the period 2011-2022 in reducing gender inequality in the labour market on indicators such as female labour market participation or unemployment, the average pay gap has increased over this period in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries included in the PwC Women in Work Index 2024 (WiW Index). This shows that despite higher participation, women remain in a considerably weaker position in terms of labour market performance compared to men. Since the creation of the index in 2011, the gender pay gap has been one of the slowest improving indicators, narrowing by only three percentage points between 2011 and 2022 across the 33 OECD member countries. Moreover, in 2022 the gap has increased to 13.5% from 13.2% in 2021," note PwC Romania specialists.   Thus, the WiW Index highlights that, at the current pace, it will take more than half a century to reduce the average gender pay gap in all 33 OECD countries.   Over the period 2021 to 2022, the indicators that improved in OECD countries were the female labour force participation rate, which increased from 70.8% to 72.1%, and the unemployment rate, which decreased from 6.4% to 5.3%.   The WiW Index measures progress towards gender equality in the workplace in the OECD, taking into account five indicators: the gender pay gap, the female labour force participation rate, the difference between male and female labour force participation rates, the female unemployment rate and the female full-time employment rate.   At global level, the data show that Luxembourg is the first in this index followed by Iceland and Slovenia. Luxembourg continues to have the lowest pay gap between women and men in OCDE countries, of -02%. The next states in the ranking are: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland.Australia registered the best improvement of its ranking, goingup seven positions, from 17 in 2021 to 10 in 2022. In exchange, the UK registered the highest drop in ranking, getting down four places from 13 in 2021 to 17 in 2022.The PayWell 2023 survey, made by PwC Romania covers over 180 companies in six activity sectors, with over 250,000 employees and 1,600 unique positions reported.