At the current rate, the EU gender wage gap will close in 2086

With the current rate of progress men and women in the European Union will not be paid equally, on average, until 2086, Bloomberg calculated using figures from the European statistics agency Eurostat. The news outlet also said that progress towards gender pay equality has slowed.

This means a woman born in Europe this year might first earn the same as a man by the time she reaches retirement age, Bloomberg wrote. At the end of 2021, the average difference between the gross hourly wages of men and women was 12.7 percent, an improvement of 0.2 percentage points compared to the year before.

The size of the wage differences between men and women differs per country. Eurostat data showed that the gap in the Netherlands is still 13.5 percent, which is equal to the average of all countries that use the euro for their currency. Data from Statistics Netherlands showed that corporations pay women 19 percent less on average in the Netherlands, while government offices have shown more improvement.

The difference was greatest in Estonia at 20.5 percent. In 2021, women earned 0.2 percent more than their male compatriots in Luxembourg. In Belgium, the difference has narrowed to 5 percent.

This month, the EU will vote on new wage transparency rules, including gender equality. If the new measures are adopted, employers will have to publish information about wage differences.