In 2021, according to INSEE, wage inequalities by gender remain a reality: +4%, position and equivalent working time, in favor of men. In fact, the difference in effective net remuneration is much greater, around 25%, due to the differences in the volume of paid work and the type of position held.
4%: if we stick to simple arithmetic, here is the gap that remains to be filled in order to achieve real equality in terms of remuneration. 4% is in fact, in 2021, the full-time equivalent salary gap between women and men, in the private sector, same profession exercised for the same employeraccording to updated figures published on Tuesday by INSEE (1).
Arithmetic, however, is not everything. Because, in the real world, inequalities between women and men are widening due to two factors: the volume of work And the type of job held.
The weight of children
This is a basic trend: activity rates (ie the proportion of adults considered to be active) are getting closer and closer. In 2021, 70% of women of working age were active, compared to 76% of men. They were, respectively, 55% against 84% in 1975. However, the differences in effective net compensation according to the genres remain colossal: 18,630 euros per year, on average, for women, against 24,640 euros for men. Either a gap of 24.4%.
This difference can be explained by a first factor of inequality: the volume of work salary. On average, in 2021, that of women is 10.6% lower that of men. A cart that increases according to the number of children loaded. THE activity rate of childless women between 25 and 49 years old (88.2%) is, in fact, very close to that of men without children (88.9%). The gap widens with the arrival of the first child and continues to grow as the family grows: 94% of fathers with 3 or more children have paid employment, compared to 67% of mothers.
The observation is the same for the use of part-time work. Without children, women already work part-time much more often: 24.6%, against 8.7% for men. With 3 or more children, the female figure rises to 40.6%, that of men drops to 6.9%.
More graduates, less often executives
The differences in workload, however, are not everything. Because even by neutralizing its effect, wage inequalities remain, in significant proportions: +15.5% in favor of men, for a full-time equivalent. Admittedly, this figure has tended to fall, by around 7 points since the 1990s. But it remains very high.
For what? Because another factor comes into play: the type of job held. Women, in fact, are overrepresented among low-wage positions: 55% of employees around 1,300 euros net in 2021, while they only represent 41.5% of jobs in the private sector. Conversely, they are under-represented among senior executives (26%). A paradox: they are, in fact, more numerous than men (55% against 45%) to have a diploma of higher education.
(1) In the private sector, the wage gap between women and men is around 4% working time and comparable positions in 2021, Insee Focus, March 2023