Woman earn on average 15 per cent less than men in Europe despite being better educated than men. In the private sector, women are paid 25 per cent less than men.
This "gender pay gap" is a result of several factors, including sex discrimination, and has barely changed over the past decade, according to the European Commission.
Unveiling a new action plan on equality yesterday Vladimír pidla, commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, said the situation was "absurd".
"Girls outperform boys at school and more women enter the labour market with a university degree than men, but a pay gap of 15 per cent persists. This is an absurd situation and needs to change," said Mr Spidla, who proposed changes to employment policies and better application of existing law to tackle the problem of discrimination.
The situation in the Republic is better than in most EU countries, with women facing a gender pay gap of 9 per cent, significantly down on the 1995 figure of 20 per cent. The Irish Congress of Trade Union (Ictu) said the EU data clashed with the Government's National Women's Strategy published in March, which recorded a 14 per cent gap. Ictu said the EC data does not include people working fewer than 15 hours per week, with the majority of such workers being women.
The Commission's strategy paper on tackling the pay gap between men and women also found that 70 per cent of managers in the Republic are male.
However, almost 90 per cent of Irish women complete upper secondary education, compared to slightly more than 82 per cent of men. The Commission's research highlighted several factors that contributed to the gender pay gap. These include: sex discrimination, segregation into less well-paid sectors of the labour market (40 per cent of women work in health, education and public administration compared to 20 per cent of men); the prevalence of part-time female workers (almost a third of women compared to 8 per cent of men), a lack of high-quality and affordable child care and other working commitments in the home.
Mr Spidla said men, regardless of whether they worked full- or part-time, contributed seven hours a week of unpaid household work. Women, on the other hand, contributed 35 hours a week if they also had a part-time job, and 24 hours a week if employed full-time elsewhere. This made it impossible for them to devote as much time as men to their careers, he said.
The report also highlighted a "glass ceiling" that prevents women from getting jobs even if they are qualified. As a result, there are fewer females in the fields of technology, mathematics, engineering and science.
To eliminate the gap, the commission will push for equal pay to be a criterion for winning public contracts and ask EU states to set objectives and deadlines for erasing the shortfall.
