Slovak women earn 18% less than men – how to achieve equal pay?

Equal pay is a broad-spectrum topic, which reflects a general, and often old fashioned, view of the position of women in the society. This is also evidenced by other GEI results. In recent years, gender differences as regards care for the household and children have increased to the disadvantage of women. Up to 35% of women take care of children, or learn with them for at least one hour a day. Only 19% of men perform the same activities. Women are also more engaged in day-to-day household-related activities (77% according to the GEI), compared to 47% for men. 60% of women (compared to 16% of men) do the cooking and cleaning for at least one hour a day.

“According to the latest GEI results published by Eurostat, differences between men and women (on the labour market, in education, earnings, state of health, involvement in public life, or time spent with families) are gradually decreasing in the EU. However, the situation in Slovakia has become slightly worse over the last 10 years. We rank 26th in gender equality in the EU. When talking about wages and salaries, women earn on average 16%-18% less a month than men. They work 39 hours a week on average, which is 2 hours less than men work. Therefore, companies should consider the implementation of measures which reflect equal remuneration of men and women,” says Michal Kišša, Programme Director of the Pontis Foundation.

Every other year, the Slovak Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, and Family organizes a competition for companies called Employer attentive to families, gender equality, and equal opportunities. A higher allowance during maternity leave and the possibility to take parental leave by fathers has also proved to be an effective measure.

Oľga Pietruchová sees the possibility to improve the current status by promoting transparency: “The crucial factor is transparency in remuneration, which could be increased by disclosing salaries in job advertisements. Increasing the minimum wage and salaries in the public sector is another important step. However, the pay gap will not be reduced unless there is an adequate representation of women in managerial positions; the same applies for the best-paid sectors such as IT.” Some companies are already slowly heading towards this vision.

Philip Morris Slovakia s.r.o, which has recently received, as the first firm in Slovakia, the EQUAL-SALARY Certificate granted by the Swiss Equal Salary Foundation to companies which passed a due diligence by PwC is an ambitious example of this. The EQUAL-SALARY Certificate appreciates the support of women in their career growth, the efforts to eliminate any stereotypes and prejudices, and the creation of a working environment suitable for women. In practice, this means that these companies offer flexible working hours, which allows women to share their time between career and family. Equal pay for men and women is a matter of course.

Marcela Krajčová, Manager for People & Culture at Philip Morris Slovakia, says: “In our company, each position is equally available for men and women. We have women working as sales representatives, managers, lawyers, etc. For example, our Sales and IT Departments are led by women. We have more women than men in our local management team, and even more women in senior positions. This is notable as our total staff includes more men than women.”

Compliance with gender equality and sustainability values is generous, but is it also profitable? Marcela Krajčová has the following message for firms that are hesitant about the business sense “Philip Morris is undergoing an unprecedented transformation to meet its vision of a smoke-free future, where cigarettes will be replaced by better, less harmful alternatives without smoke. To achieve this, we need to attract new and retain existing talents. As an employer, we are operating in global competition; therefore, we must have high standards for the approach to employees. Thus, this clearly makes sense to us.”