WOMEN in Spain would need to earn more than 20 per cent extra every year to receive the same salary as men, a new report into the gender pay gap has revealed.
According to the annual ‘Wage gap, sticky floor and glass ceiling’ assessment published by the finance ministry, the disparity in average pay packets for men and women in 2024 stood at €5,156 per year.
In relative terms, women would therefore need to earn 23.2 per cent more per hour to equal the average wage taken home by men.
That means Spain’s gender pay gap stands at more than double that of the European Union average, which currently sits at 11 per cent, according to data from Eurostat.
The current gender pay gap in Spain has narrowed by 0.7 per cent compared to the previous year.
However, the absolute difference has widened by €64 due to inflation and wage increases.
At the current rate, experts say it will take 23 years to completely eliminate the gender pay gap.
According to the report, 4.2 million women – 42.9 per cent of those in employment – earned less than the minimum wage rate of €15,876 per year in 2024, accounting for 55 per cent of all workers on low incomes.
The study also highlights the difference in the gender pay gap by age group.
Female workers aged under 18 earn €818 less than their male counterparts, but the disparity widens to an eye-watering €10,017 per year among those aged 65 or over.
As a percentage, women aged 18 or under earn around 47 per cent less than their male peers, although this decreases for women between the ages of 26 and 35 to 11.3 per cent.
The gap then widens from then on, which experts say is linked to difficulties in promotion and the burden of caregiving and child-rearing.
For women aged 36-45, the gap sits at 22.3 per cent.
For those aged 65, it balloons to 55.6 per cent.
By area, the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands can hold their heads up high as the areas with the smallest gender pay gap for both younger and older workers.
In contrast, Andalucia, Madrid and Asturias are home to the widest disparities in average salaries between men and women.
By sector, the biggest differences are found in IT (€8,138) and business (€7,353), which can be put down to a small proportion of women in the highest salary brackets.
On the other hand, the smallest difference is found in construction and real estate, where the gap sits at €1,453 per year.
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