The wage gap is reduced as a result of increases in the minimum wage, but their wages must increase by 24% to match that of men
In the 21st century there is still a clear inequality in Spain between the remuneration that women and men receive on average for their salaried work: more than 5,200 euros per year. Thus, men earned an average of 26,934 euros gross in 2019, while the salary of women was reduced to an average of 21,682. This means that the average salary of women would have to increase by 5,252 euros, 24%, to match the salary of men, according to a report published today by CC OO, which explains that the percentage of salary gap is higher that of other statistical approaches, which reduce the perception of wage inequality.
Despite everything, in recent years the salary gap has been reduced significantly, reaching its minimum in 2019, due to the strong increase experienced by the lowest salaries in the country, thanks to the significant increases in the minimum wage, which was boosted by 22 % in 2019, and the IV State Collective Bargaining Agreement (2018-2020), which included the progressive increase in the minimum salary of the agreement of 1,000 euros per month before the end of its validity.
The wage gap had already been registering slight annual decreases since the end of the 2008 crisis and the beginning of the recovery in previous years of economic recovery, but it was in 2019 that it clearly fell downwards. In fact, during the last decade it had remained at levels above 28%, which reached a maximum in 2013 when it rose to 32%, but began a downward path in 2018 that culminated in 2019: thus, in the last six years the gap has been reduced by 8 percentage points.