The Equal Pay Day indicates unequal payment with the same work
On March 7th theEqual Pay Day 2025, the key date, from which men and women are paid for this year. Or conversely the day until women worked free of charge. How come? Because due to the wage gap, we are far from the same payment for the same work, regardless of gender. We explain what is behind the day.
Equal Pay Day: That's why we need this day of action
The Equal Pay Day makes the gender wage gap every year, the, attentive - the fact that men are better rewarded for the same work than women. This difference has been 18 percent for years, in 2024 it finally decreased to 16 percent - at least two percentage points less than in 2023. In 2026, the Equal Pay Day will take place on February 27th, for 2025 the calculated 18 percent apply from 2023.
That means: If you earn 100 euros as a woman in 2025, a man will receive 118 euros for the same work in the same industry or at the same title level.Not taken into account in the family, of course.
The Equal Pay Day is a kind of key date: only from this date women, calculated on the annual salary, are just as rewarded as men. Translated for 2025: Actually, we have actually worked for 66 days this year without earning money - men, on the other hand, will be adequately rewarded from January 1st.
Equal Pay Day: How is the wage gap calculated?
Dry, but important and bitter facts: The famous 16 or 18 percent, which women earn less than men, show the percentage difference between the average gross hourly wages of men and the average gross hourly wages of women in relation to the average gross hourly wages of men.
Equal Pay Day: That is why the calculation of the Gender Pay Gap is criticized
Critics: Inside, indicates that this pot is not only thrown in full -time workers in order to draw attention to the disillusioning situation of women on the German labor market, but also employees inthat earn less per se than someone with a 40-hour week.
In addition, the critics say: Of course, there are different salary models that were not based on gender, but were based on the work of the profession. For this reason alone, the calculations would be obsolete. Problem: Even if one would calculate all (really all) possible factors, men and women in Germany would stillbecome.
Equal Pay Day: That's why the action day is needed to draw attention to grievances
Despite everything, it is certain: in far too many cases, women earn less than men. Even if the gender Pay Gap, let's say, would only be eight percent, that would be too much. Because the spiral of the unequal remuneration always revolves around the same issues in many professional fields: unpaid care work, fewer further training and advanced opportunities for part-time work (and care work), by default less salary for the same work and then impendingDue to the.
The fact that women who do work part -time in particular often (unpaid) overtime work in order to create the workload imposed on them in times of constant corporate restructuring is not being considered in the calculation of the gender pay gaps and the critics: inside. We are shown the employee part-time, who does not check emails in the evening after putting her child to bed or answering the first slack message on the way to the daycare center in the morning.
Sure, there are companies, indeed entire industries that are bound by the same wage payments for the same work for everyone: civil servants, employees: inside in the public service, people in a union. But even there there are problems: if a woman falls out longer, let's say: Because of a birth or child education in times of daycare noise, then it is missing in the workplace and is therefore defined in the collective bargainingnot taken into account.
In a column onSPIEGEL ONLINETherefore, new discussions with unions (and employers' associations) are required that would have supported this unequal wage policy with their misogynistic collective agreements - especially where theyes even a woman.
What the author in his column, in which he also equates the Equal Pay Day with “feminist propaganda”, forgets: Both the seller in the bakery as well as the car mechanic in the car workshop and also the author of this opinion do not work in industry or within a union or an employee. And we wonder whether the colleague, next door, may earn up to 18 percent more than we do. And of course we would be legally able to inquire about what the equivalent colleague now really deserves. But that doesn't close the wage gap either. In this case, too, information or words are not to be equated with deeds - as sad as it is.
It is clear that the gender -specific wage gap is present. The fact that they exist is the actual scandal - nothow muchPercent men earn more on average than women. And politics, companies and private sector would have to change something-quickly, easily and without the commissioning of commissions of a committee that only has to commission years to develop history, actual state and prognosis of equality in Germany. Because if we really want to achieve equality, we finally have to talk about money and fair remuneration.
