Paid 9 to 3 Work 9 to 5 – The Female working week.

Ahead of a Conference on Equal Pay held next Monday and Tuesday by the Belgian Presidency, PES Women once again calls for real action on eliminating the pay gap between women and men in the European Union. On an average daily basis, women get paid 2 hours less than men for the same work. We work from 9 to 5 but get paid from 9 to 3.

PES Women believes that setting clear yearly targets per member state for closing the pay gap would enable to European Commission to monitor much better the progress throughout the EU. Therefore setting a target of 1% per member state per year could lead towards concrete goals and results for 2020.

PES Women calls on the Belgian Presidency and the Conference on Equal Payto adopt a European Equal Pay Day, based on the Belgian model, to create more awareness for the unacceptable current pay gap of over 17% as well as to monitor and measure on a yearly basis the progress made.

Furthermore, the Lisbon Strategy has achieved certain results – female employment rate at 60% throughout Europe- and Europe cannot lose the ground on what it has already gained. On the contrary, we must build upon the gender-equality achievements and take several further steps with the new 2020 Strategy. That means we need to ensure that by 2020, the EU reaches at least 70% female employment; reaches and lowers the EU gender pay gap by 10%.

“We have the platform of the Europe 2020 Strategy, we have the Gender Equality Strategy, now we need real commitment from our governments and the European Commission to shut the gender pay gap. Let’s get women paid for the last 2 hours of each working day.”

Tag: Conference on Equal Pay, European Equal Pay Day, PSE, The Female working week