To the Equal Pay Day on March 7, 2025: The Gender Pay Gap is more than ever

Congratulations, from today you will also be paid as a woman for your work! Because women in Germany earn average as much less than men that they work for free for two months. More precisely, women earned an average of 4.10 euros gross per hour last year. In 2024, the average gross hourly wage for women was 22.24 euros, for men 26.34 euros.

But there is good news: This wage gap between men and women has shrunk last year - for the first time in 2020. The salary difference decreased from 18 to 16 percent, the Federal Statistical Office recently said. The gender Pay GAP has never decreased so much since the beginning of the records in 2006. The fact that the wage gap has shrunk so much is mainly due to the fact that the monthly gross gross wages of women rose by around 8 percent, to 2,851 euros. In men, wages have only increased by five percent to 4,078 euros per month.

But even if we are now “only” with a 16 percent salary difference, this reflects how women are structurally disadvantaged to the labor market. Because the Federal Statistical Office suspects that the wage gap is mainly created by the fact that women work part -time more often. In addition, professions in which a lot of women traditionally work are paid worse.

But there is still a second, the "adjusted" gender pay gap: even if a woman does the same tasks, is equally qualified and can present a similar résumé as a man, she still earns six percent less. This salary difference did not change last year either.

How can that be? Experts suspect that they are women who have to interrupt their job more often because they are pregnant, raise their children or have to maintain relatives. And that makes them uninteresting for the labor market than men.

Earning 16 percent less money than men - of course we cannot leave that. Because a large gender pay gap also stands for great injustice and inequality in society. But how can we help that the wage gap continues and maybe even a little faster? Many put their hopes in the new fee transparency directive, which Germany will have to implement in 2026. She stipulates that employers have to disclose how wages and salaries are determined. Then you have a right to find out how much the male colleague deserves.

But that's not all: Women -dominated professions also have to be paid better to upgrade them - especially when it comes to systematic areas such as healthcare and educational professions. And of course the care situation in Germany must also improve so that fewer women are forced to work part -time. It is worth taking to the streets for such things - for example tomorrow on the International Women's Campaign Day.