The peer review was hosted by the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs and focused on how legislative measures and digital tools targeted at employers can help increase pay transparency and ultimately reduce the gender pay gap.

According to Eurostat, the average gender pay gap in the EU-27 was 14.1% in 2018, varying from 1.4% in Luxembourg to 21.8% in Estonia.

Closing the gender pay gap requires a comprehensive approach tackling a variety of root causes, including gender stereotypes, gender segregation of educational and labour market choices, unequal representation in dPeer Review on reducing the gender pay gap by increasing pay transparencyecision-making, unequal sharing of care responsibilities, challenges in finding work-life balance and discrimination.

In 2014, the European Commission recommended that pay transparency measures are implemented in all Member States to help combat discriminatory pay practices by employers (Recommendation on Pay Transparency (2014/124/EU)). Ursula von der Leyen announced in 2019 the European Commission’s intention to develop a proposal for introducing binding pay transparency measures. The European Commission has presented in March 2021 a proposal on pay transparency to ensure that women and men in the EU get equal pay for equal work.

The Peer Review supported future policy discussions aimed at finding ambitious and effective legislative pay transparency measures that are proportional and do not place excessive administrative and financial burdens on public and private sector organisations. It also discussed the use of supporting measures, such as digital tools. Mari-Liis Sepper (Praxis) wrote the host country paper.

For more information read further: https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=1047&furtherNews=yes&newsId=9924