Why pay transparency and why now?

3 min read

Every year, the European Commission »celebrates« European Equal Pay Day, which marks the number of extra days women need to work to the end of the year to earn the same amount as men in the same year. In 2015, that date fell on 2 November, whereas in 2025, it fell on 17 November. In other words, just fifteen days have been gained in the course of a decade, a modest improvement that lays bare the painfully slow pace of change. Awareness alone clearly has not been sufficient. At this rate, the EU will not achieve equal pay until 2054, almost a century after the Treaty of Rome made equal pay a legal right in 1957.

This slowdown comes at the time of a growing backlash against feminism. Across Europe, far-right narratives and digital misogyny are increasingly painting gender equality policies as »ideological« or harmful, as if feminism were the greatest threat facing the labour market. The mood was captured in a New York Times op ed that went viral just a few days before Equal Pay Day in 2025, originally titled »Did Women Ruin the Workplace?« Far from »ruining« anything, however, feminist demands simply expose inequalities that the numbers makes impossible to deny.

And the numbers are striking. Women in the EU still earn 12 per cent less per hour than men, meaning that for every euro he earns, she receives only 88 cents. If he takes home €1,000 a month, she earns about €880 for the same work. Over a year, that’s a shortfall of €1,440, money that could have covered rent or child care, or could simply have provided more stability. Crucially, the gap does not stay still, but widens with age, with motherhood and with every career break taken to shoulder care responsibilities, accumulating until it becomes a 30 per cent pension gap. Inequality, in other words, does not just impact monthly pay, but compounds over a lifetime, shaping a woman’s entire economic trajectory. 

In some sectors, the picture is even more dramatic. In the legal profession in Italy, which is highly feminised, male lawyers in, say, Lombardy earn as much as €67,000 more per year than their female colleagues (Cassa Forense and Censis, 2024). That makes roughly a 60 per cent gender pay gap – or rather, not so much a gap as a black hole. And being a black hole, it is clear that something deeper is pulling women down.

Indeed, the reasons for such disparities are structural and deeply rooted in long-standing economic and cultural dynamics that shape women’s careers long before they even reach the workplace. Women remain overrepresented in lower-paid sectors and underrepresented in higher-paid ones, a pattern described as the »sticky floor«. And even at the top, a stubborn »glass ceiling« still blocks the way: unsurprisingly, only 8 per cent of CEOs in major European companies are women. Career breaks due to caregiving and the much higher rate of part-time work among women (30 per cent versus 8 per cent among men) are a drag on career progression and depress lifetime earnings, increasing the risk of poverty in old age. But even after accounting for all these measurable factors, two-thirds of the gender pay gap remains unexplained, hidden in opaque pay structures, discretionary bonuses and gender-stereotyped assumptions about leadership that still mirror traditional male career paths, hidden in the gaps no one is allowed to question and in the numbers no one is allowed to see. Pay inequality thrives in silence, and silence lets discrimination flourish unchecked.

This is the silence the EU Pay Transparency Directive seeks to break. Adopted in 2023 and set to be transposed by Member States by 2026, it aims to remove the opacity that has long shielded unequal pay from scrutiny. Its logic is simple: make salaries, pay systems and pay registers visible, accessible and challengeable, so discrimination can no longer hide behind culture, custom or »confidentiality«.

The Directive strengthens EU equal pay law at every stage of employment. It expands the definition of discrimination to include harassment, pregnancy and caregiving-related treatment, and applies to all workers and job applicants across the public and private sectors (Article 3). Before recruitment, employers must publish salary ranges, stop asking about previous pay and make career-progression rules transparent (Article 5). Once hired, workers gain the right to know their own pay and the average pay of colleagues doing the same or equivalent work, and employers must justify any gaps using objective, gender-neutral criteria. Pay-secrecy clauses are banned (Article 7).

From 2027, companies with more than 100 employees must report their gender pay gaps to Member States (Article 9). When unexplained gaps of above 5 per cent appear, a joint pay assessment involving worker representatives becomes mandatory (Article 10). Enforcement is strengthened through a reverse burden of proof, effective sanctions and full compensation for those adversely affected (Article 18). Equality bodies, trade unions and NGOs gain expanded powers to support workers and pursue claims (Article 13). The Directive also recognises intersectional discrimination, acknowledging that gender-based pay inequality often intersects with racism, ableism, ageism or homophobia (Recital 25).

The potential impact is significant. By exposing unjustified pay disparities to scrutiny, the Directive gives workers – especially women in male-dominated or managerial roles – tools to finally enforce their rights. If implemented ambitiously, the Directive could instigate a virtuous cycle, including fairer pay practices, more inclusive workplaces, stronger labour-market participation, a broader shift in how society values women’s work, and even renewed economic growth. After all, narrowing the gender pay gap by just 1 percentage point could boost EU GDP by 0.1 per cent.

The Directive’s transformative potential is not guaranteed, however. Its current design still leaves important gaps. For example, it excludes the self-employed; focuses mainly on larger companies; and its 5 per cent threshold for mandatory assessments risks becoming a ceiling rather than a starting point. Even the best legislation is only as effective as its implementation. Some Member States lack the administrative capacity – or the political will – to enforce the new rules; others may opt for minimalist transposition. This is why EU institutions must monitor compliance closely, and why Member States must invest in enforcement systems and equality bodies capable of turning rights on paper into real equality in the workplace.

Civil society and trade unions will also be indispensable. They must work with institutions and employers to ensure that transparency becomes a driver of structural change rather than merely a box-ticking exercise. Embedding transparency in collective agreements will be crucial, as will proper training, not only for HR staff, but also for the labour inspectors, judges and equality bodies who will interpret and enforce the new obligations on the ground.

Ultimately, transparency is only the beginning. To make it meaningful, the EU must pair it with broader reforms of the deep structural roots of inequality, ranging from unequal care responsibilities to occupational segregation, harassment and women’s persistent underrepresentation in leadership positions.

The EU Directive can be a catalyst for change across Europe if governments, employers and institutions seize this opportunity with ambition rather than caution. It sets a minimum standard that Member States can and must exceed.

The time for pay transparency and for gender equality is now. Europe cannot afford another decade of stalled progress. This is the moment to choose a different future: one in which work is fair, transparent … and proudly feminist!

1. ^

   The title was subsequently changed to »Did liberal feminism ruin the workplace? «

Reference

Helfferich, B., Maglietta, V. and Olczak, V (2024): Implementing equality: Delivering pay transparency for professionals and managers. Eurocadres & Gender Five Plus. Available at: genderfiveplus.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/EUROCADRES_-COMPLETED.docx.pdf