Wage gap decreasing in Dutch private sector; Women still earn 6.1% less per hour

The wage gap in the Netherlands is decreasing in the private sector, but the decrease is stagnating in the government. Last year, women still earned 6.1 percent less than men in the private sector and 1.7 percent less in the public sector, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported.

Without accounting for differences in person, job, and employer characteristics, the private sector wage gap was 14.5 percent per hour last year, compared to 16.4 percent in 2022. Taking these differences into account, the wage gap decreased from 6.9 percent to 6.1 percent.

The wage gap between men and women is smaller in the public sector, but the decrease has stagnated. Last year, women earned 4.5 percent less than men in the public sector, compared to 5.1 percent in 2022. Taking differences in person, job, and employer characteristics into account, the wage gap was 1.7 percent last year.

“Because there is a small margin of uncertainty around the figures, this difference does not differ statistically from the wage gap in 2022,” CBS said. “This ends the downward trend in wage gaps in the government sector since 2014.”

The gender wage gap widens the older people get. At younger ages, women earn more per hour than men on average. In the private sector, the turning point was at age 26 last year, when men started earning more than women. At age 45, women earned an average of €6 less per hour than men, increasing to €9 at age 60.

In the public sector, women earned more per hour than men up to age 40 on average. Here, the differences in hourly wages were also smaller at older ages. At age 60, women in the public sector earned an average of 4 euros less per hour than men last year.