What are the causes?

There are a number of complex and often interrelated factors that explain the existence of the gender pay gap.

Direct discrimination

Some women are paid less than men for doing the same job. This factor only explains a small part of the gender pay gap, due to the effectiveness of the European Union and national legislation.

More frequently women earn less than men for doing jobs of equal value. One of the main causes is the way women's competences are valued compared to men's.
Jobs requiring similar skills, qualifications or experience tend to be poorly paid and undervalued when they are dominated by women rather than by men. For example, the (mainly female) cashiers in a supermarket usually earn less than the (mainly male) employees involved in stacking shelves and other more physical tasks.
In addition the evaluation of performance, and hence pay level and career progression, may also be biased in favour of men. For example, where women and men are equally well qualified, more value can be attached to responsibility for capital than to responsibility for people.

The gender pay gap is also reinforced by the segregation in the labour market. Women and men still tend to work in different jobs. On the one hand, women and men often predominate in different sectors. On the other hand, within the same sector or company women predominate in lower valued and lower paid occupations.
Women often work in sectors where their work is lower valued and lower paid than those dominated by men. More than 40% of women work in health, education and public administration. This is twice as much as the share of men in the same sectors. When we look at the health and social work sector alone, 80% of those working in this sector are women.
Moreover, women are frequently employed as administrative assistants, shop assistants or low skilled or unskilled workers - these occupations accounting for almost half of the female workforce. Many women work in low-paying occupations, for example, cleaning and care work.
Women are under-represented in managerial and senior positions. For example, women represent only 32% of managers in companies within the EU, 10% of members of management boards of the largest companies, and 29% of scientists and engineers across Europe.

Segregation is frequently linked to traditions and stereotypes. Whilst in some cases this may reflect personal choices, traditions and stereotypes may influence, for example, the choice of educational paths and, consequently, professional careers that girls and women make.
While 55% of university students are women, they are a minority in fields like mathematics, computing and engineering.
Only 8.4 in 1.000 women aged 20-29 are graduates in mathematics, science and technology compared to 17.6 men.
Consequently, there are fewer women working in scientific and technical jobs. In many cases this results in women working in lower valued and lower paid sectors of the economy.
Because of these traditions and stereotypes, women are expected to reduce their working hours or exit the labour market to carry out child or elder care.

Women experience greater difficulties than men when it comes to balancing work and private life.
Family and care responsibilities are still not equally shared. The task of looking after dependent family members is largely borne by women. Far more women than men choose to take parental leave. This fact, together with the lack of facilities for child care and elder care, means that women are often forced to exit the labour market: the employment rate for women with dependent children is only 62.4% compared with 91.4% for men with dependent children.

Although part-time work may be a personal choice, women have greater recourse to part-time work in order to combine work and family responsibilities. There is evidence of pay gap when looked at from the differences in hourly earnings of part-time and full-time workers. Across Europe over one-third of women work part-time, compared to only 8% of men. More than three-quarters of the total of part-time workers are women.
Consequently, women have more career interruptions or work shorter hours than men. This can impact negatively on their career development and promotion prospects. It also means less financially rewarding careers.