Every year, the observation is the same: although they tend to be reduced, salary inequalities persist. The income gap between men and women is gradually narrowing, but there is still a long way to go towards true parity. This is what reveals the latest study from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee), published on March 5, 2024. Just three days before the international day of the fight for women’s rights, the organization unveiled its annual report on the gender gap salary between men and women, based on data collected in 2022. We thus learn that for a comparable position, that is to say for the same profession exercised in the same company, a female employee receives on average 4% less than her male colleague.
A blatant injustice, which nevertheless appears “normal” in the eyes of one young man in five! But we will still note a modest victory, since this figure was 4.35% in 2021. INSEE nevertheless specifies that this difference in monthly net income does not necessarily result from discrimination based on gender, since she does not take into account “experience, seniority in the company or diploma, differences which can affect it upwards or downwards”.
For equal working hours, women earn 14.9% less than men
But unfortunately, wage inequalities don’t stop there. It is in fact impossible to take into account only salaries for equal positions, since women are more prone to part-time work and are less often employed over the course of a year. Because although there is indeed parental leave for fathers, it is still mainly women who put their careers on hold following a birth. Moreover, INSEE states: “The wage income gaps between women and men are even more marked between parents : mothers have significantly lower working hours but also full-time equivalent salaries than fathers, and the gaps increase with the number of children.”
Unsurprisingly, the more we broaden the characteristics to be taken into account, the more we notice that women are penalized in the professional sphere. So, the average annual income of these gentlemen is 26,110 euros, compared to only 19,980 euros for women, a difference of 23.5%. And even with identical working hours – that is to say when the profession is different, but the number of hours worked is the same – women still earn 14.9% less than their male counterparts. For comparison, it was 15% in 2021. The gap is therefore closing… at a snail’s pace. However, the evolution is palpable if we look further: two decades earlier, in 2000, the average annual income of men was 34.5% higher than that of women.
Salary gaps vary depending on the sector of activity and age
On the other hand, INSEE notes that salary inequalities vary according to age and socio-professional category. “Wage gaps for comparable working hours are more marked among executives”And “grow with the size of the company”. The statistics institute also mentions the famous professional segregation : men and women do not work in the same sectors of activity, and women less often reach high-paid positions. It’s no secret: women are largely under-represented in the fields of mechanics, IT, transport or even handling, unlike so-called care or hospitality professions. – they represent, for example, 95% of secretaries and 88% of nurses, compared to only 2.8% of truck drivers or 1.5% of qualified car mechanics.
Surprisingly, in the construction sector, “the average salaries of women are slightly higher than those of men”. However, a minimal difference, of only 1.3%, which can be explained precisely by the fact that “women are almost absent, except among executives, who are better paid on average than other employees”. Moreover, wage inequalities also widen with age. In full-time equivalent, the net salary of women is 4.7% lower than that of men among those under 25. A figure which increases to 8% among 25-39 year olds, then to 14.1% among those in their forties, to almost 20% among those in their fifties, and which explodes the scores by climbing to more than 26% among employees over 60 years old. Obviously, ageism and sexism go hand in hand in French companies!