The Gender Pay Gap in Europe from a Legal Perspective

The principle of equal pay for men and women for work of equal value has been key to the European Union ever since its foundation. It was laid down in the original Treaty, and brought into practice by several directives. Also the Court of Justice’s case law has boosted its importance.

Notwithstanding these efforts at the legal level, the average gender pay gap for the 27 EU Member States (17.6% in 2008) is hardly diminishing.

It is against this worrisome background that the European Commission asked its European Network of Legal Experts in the Field of Gender Equality to collect data on national policies, initiatives and legal instruments aimed at tackling the gender pay gap, and to explore potential links between equal pay and other national legal provisions.

33 legal experts of the EU Member States, the EEA countries and the candidate countries took part in a questionnaire that formed the basis for this publication. It analyses a wide variety of national policies, initiatives and legal instruments that aim to combat the gender pay gap and it uncovers a number of unexpected links between the gender pay gap and other parts of the law.