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The difference between men and women's gross hourly pay is 4.5 percent in Romania, four times lower than the European average, the European Commission (EC) said in a Wednesday release. "According to a recent survey released on the occasion of the European Equal Pay Day (November 3), in Romania the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and women is 4.5 percent in favor of the former. It is four times lower than the European average (16.7 percent), which also favors men, with Estonia registering the widest gap (28.1 percent). As regards the yearly difference between overall gross earnings by gender, including household chores (such as career breaks to raise children or caring for a relative), Romania records a value of 26.9 percent in favor of men, while the European average, also biased in favor of men, is 39.8 percent," reads the document.
The factors that contribute to the pay gap in Romania are: the workforce distribution in industrial sectors (as women work mainly in areas that pay a lower hourly wage for the same skill level such as education, health, social assistance), age (with positive effect on the hourly pay, as women have lower ages than men), the working time (as women have part-time jobs more frequently than men). The pay difference is also influenced by the fact that certain types of low pay activities, such as house cleaning or care, are outside the official labor market (a lower difference actually meaning a lower employment rate among women).
