The Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia reports that, based on provisional data, in 2022 the average gross hourly earnings of women were 17.1% below the earnings of men.
Compared with 2021, the pay gap between men and women in Latvia
has increased by 2.5 percentage points.
The pay gap between men and women is affected by various social and economic factors: professions and duties, education, age, work experience, work hours, as well as labour force supply and demand trends on the market and structural changes. The index was calculated without excluding the aforementioned factors, which can explain the reasons for the differences in pay.
The biggest pay gap was observed in art, culture and leisure,
where in 2022 men’s hourly rate was on average 37.2% higher than that of women; in the information and communications services sector (the difference was 34% in men’s favour).
The pay gap of more than 20% (between 20.2% and 28.9%) was in seven other sectors: financial and insurance; professional, scientific and technical services; mining and quarrying; wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; manufacturing; operation of administrative and support services as well as other services. In another six sectors the pay gap in men’s favour ranged between 7.2% and 19.5%.
In state administration, as well as transport and storage sector, the pay gap was minimal – 0.6% and 1.7% respectively. In the electricity, gas, heating supply and air conditioning sectors were paid 6.1% more than men.
In the private sector, the pay gap between men and women was 2.8 percentage points higher (18.1%) than in the public sector (15.3%). Women employed full-time earned 20% more than men, but the pay gap for part-time workers was smaller (12.4%).
In 2022 the smallest pay gap between men and women was for seniors older than 65 (11.0%) and the age group under 25 years (11.1%). The biggest gap was in the 35-44 age group, where women’s pay was 24.8% lower than men’s, as well as the 25-34 years group (20.9%).
In the European Union women earned 12.4% less than men in 2021. The biggest pay gap between men and women was in Estonia (20.5%) and Austria (18.8%).
The hourly pay gap between men and women is one of the European Union’s sustainable development goal indexes. It is calculated using Eurostat methodology and is used for international comparisons. It is applied to monitor progress with gender equality.
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