The gender pay gap

In Estonia, women's average hourly pay is 18.8% below men's.

In 2024, the EU average was 11.1%. That is how much lower women's average hourly pay was than men's. The gap also reflects that women and men often work in different jobs and sectors.

Figures for:: 2024.
Covers:: differs by country.
New data:: once a year.
Dataset updated:: 27 October 2026.

27 / 27 EU countries ranked

The ranking

In 2024, the gender pay gap ranged from −0.8% in Luxembourg to 18.8% in Estonia.

Gender pay gap, %

2024 · employees in industry, construction and services, except public administration and defence

−505101520%

Rank 1: Estonia, 18.8 %

Rank 2: Czechia, 18.5 %

Rank 3: Austria, 17.6 %

Rank 4: Hungary, 16.9 %

Rank 5: Finland, 16.3 %

Rank 6: Slovakia, 15.7 %

Rank 7: Germany, 15.6 %

Rank 8: Denmark, 14.0 %

Rank 9: Latvia, 13.9 %

Rank 10: Greece, 13.4 %

Rank 11: Bulgaria, 12.0 %

Rank 12: Cyprus, 11.8 %

Rank 12: France, 11.8 %

Rank 14: Netherlands, 11.2 %

Rank 14: Sweden, 11.2 %

Rank 16: Lithuania, 10.0 %

Rank 17: Ireland, 8.3 %

Rank 18: Slovenia, 8.0 %

Rank 19: Spain, 7.3 %

Rank 20: Portugal, 7.0 %

Rank 21: Croatia, 6.6 %

Rank 22: Italy, 5.3 %

Rank 23: Malta, 4.9 %

Rank 24: Poland, 4.0 %

Rank 25: Romania, 3.7 %

Rank 26: Belgium, 0.7 %

Rank 27: Luxembourg, −0.8 %

How to read: bars start at zero. Every country with a value is shown, ranked from highest to lowest.Source: Eurostat, Gender pay gap in unadjusted form by NACE Rev. 2 activity - structure of earnings survey methodology (earn_gr_gpgr2).

About the data

The unadjusted gender pay gap shows how much lower women's average gross hourly earnings are than men's, as a share of men's. It counts employees in enterprises with 10 or more employees. The EU figure is the average of the national gaps weighted by the number of employees.

Counted: employees in industry, construction and services, except public administration and defence.

Eurostat: “GPG = [(average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees - average gross hourly earnings of female paid employees) / average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees] expressed in %.” (source)

The four-yearly Structure of Earnings Survey (SES), estimated from national sources for the years in between.

How to read these numbers

How it is measured

The gap is unadjusted. It compares average hourly pay and does not take into account differences in jobs, hours, experience or education. It is not a measure of unequal pay for equal work.

In the survey years (every four years, most recently 2022), the gap compares hourly pay in one month, October in most countries. For the years in between, each country estimates the gap from its own sources and aligns it with the survey. These sources differ by country. Some cover one month, others the whole year.

Provisional figures

Most 2024 values are provisional (flag p, sometimes together with another flag) until the benchmark figures of the Structure of Earnings Survey are available in December 2026.

Estimates

Some values are Eurostat estimates (flag e).

Different definitions

Czechia's figure also covers public administration and enterprises with fewer than 10 employees (flag d).

Sources and data

Eurostat, Gender pay gap in unadjusted form by NACE Rev. 2 activity - structure of earnings survey methodology (earn_gr_gpgr2). Data updated 27 October 2026, retrieved 28 October 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Eurostat metadata · Eurostat methodology

The exact Eurostat API query

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/earn_gr_gpgr2?format=JSON&lang=en&freq=A&geo=AT&geo=BE&geo=BG&geo=CY&geo=CZ&geo=DE&geo=DK&geo=EE&geo=EL&geo=ES&geo=EU27_2020&geo=FI&geo=FR&geo=HR&geo=HU&geo=IE&geo=IT&geo=LT&geo=LU&geo=LV&geo=MT&geo=NL&geo=PL&geo=PT&geo=RO&geo=SE&geo=SI&geo=SK&nace_r2=B-S_X_O&unit=PC

How every number in this story was computed