ZAGREB, March 8, 2018 - Women in the European Union were paid on average 16.2% less than men in 2016, which means that women earned on average 84 cents for every euro a man made per hour, according to the EU statistical office Eurostat.
Across member states, the gender pay gap in 2016 ranged from just over 5% in Romania and Italy, to more than 25% in Estonia, followed by the Czech Republic and Germany (both almost 22%), Eurostat said in a report on the occasion of International Women's Day, marked on March 8.
In Croatia, according to data for 2014, the gender pay gap was 8.7%, which puts it among the countries with gender pay gaps of less than 10%. These are: Romania (5.2%), Italy (5.3%), Luxembourg (5.5%), Belgium (6.1%), Poland (7.2%) and Slovenia (7.8%).
Conversely, the gender pay gap was over 20% in Estonia (25.3%), the Czech Republic (21.8%), Germany (21.5%), the United Kingdom (21.0%) and Austria (20.1%).
Compared with 2011, the gender pay gap has dropped in most of the EU member states. The most noticeable decreases between 2011 and 2016 were recorded in Romania (-4.4 percentage points), Hungary (-4.0 pp) Spain and Austria (both -3.4 pp), Belgium (-3.3 pp) and the Netherlands (-3.0 pp).
In contrast, the gender pay gap has risen in ten member states, with the most significant increases being observed in Portugal (+4.6 pp) and Slovenia (+4.5 pp).
In Croatia, the gender pay gap rose by 3.0 pp, from 5.7% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2014.
At EU level, the gender pay gap has decreased slightly, by 0.6 pp, from 16.8% in 2011 to 16.2% in 2016, Eurostat said.
