Portugal was the European country that worsened the pay gap of the last five years

  • ECO News
  • 7 March 2018

According to data from Eurostat, women from the European Union received salaries 16% inferior than men in 2016. In Portugal, there was a 17,5% difference.

Salary discrepancies continue. According to data from Eurostat, women in the European Union received salaries that were 16.2% lower than man’s in 2016. But in Portugal, during that period, there was a 17.5% difference — the seventh largest in the European Union. Besides, it was in Portugal that the discrepancies worsened the most between 2011 and 2016 (4.6 percentage points).

According to Eurostat, in 2016, women continued having lower salaries than men. Estonia, Czech Republic and Germany were the countries where women workers suffered more with inequalities — their wages were 20% less than men’s. In the European Union average, those differences stood at 16.2%, with Malta registering the lowest amount out of all member states (11%). As for the Portuguese, they stood above the EU average, with a 17.5% discrepancy. Portugal stood in seventh place in the ranking of countries with the highest level of discrepancies.

However, according to data published this Wednesday there is a number that stands out: between 2011 and 2016, wage gaps increased the most in Portugal, by 4.6%. In most European Union countries, wage gaps decreased, according to Eurostat. The steepest decreases came from Romania (-4.4%9 and Hungary (-4%).