Salary discrimination against women in Spain is equivalent to them working for free starting this Saturday, November 30, until December 31according to the UGT complaint in its #YoTrabajoGratis campaign, in which it remembers that, for every euro a man earns, a woman earns 91.3 cents.
The union denounces in a statement that, in the European Union as a whole, for every euro that a man receives, a woman receives 87.3 cents, that is, They earn on average 12.7% less than them in salary/hour. In the case of Spanish women, this negative difference is 8.7%.
While the average wage gap in the EU has decreased from 15.8% in 2010 to 12.7% in 2022, 3.1 percentage points, in Spain This reduction has been 7.5 percentage points in the same period, more than double the European average.
Spain is situated like this in seventh place in the Europe of 27 with the lowest wage gap, which UGT attributes to the policies of recent years regarding equal pay, as well as the successive increases in the SMI, which has gone from 900 euros gross per month in 2019 to 1,000 euros in 2022a year analyzed by the European statistical office Eurostat in 2024.
Royal Decree for equality
The union also recalls that in 2019 the Royal Decree of urgent measures for the guarantee of equal treatment and opportunities between women and men in employment and occupation, which introduced the definition of salary of equal value in article 28 of the Workers’ Statute, as well as the mandatory nature of disaggregated salary records by sex.
This standard was developed in remuneration matters by the Royal Decree on Equal Pay of 2020, which introduced, in addition to a development on salary recordsjob evaluations with a gender perspective in all collective agreements and in companies obliged to have an Equality Plan, as well as remuneration audits to detect wage discrimination, prevent it and eliminate it.
On the other hand, UGT considers essential the approval in 2023 of the European directive that reinforces the application of the principle of equal pay between men and women for the same job or work of equal value through remuneration transparency measures and mechanisms for compliance.
The union trusts that this community regulation will be transferred to the Spanish one before May 2026as it increases the obligations for European companies regarding equal pay; and reminds the Government that it has two years to do so.
UGT also highlights that wage discrimination towards women remains and even worsens after retirement and that the gender gap in pensions places Spain in eighth place for the highest differences, with a 27.8% gap in 2023, according to Eurostat, a figure that is above the EU average, which It stands at 25.4%.
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