►Women earn 14.9% less hourly, 22.9% less per year for same work as men ►
The gap in pay for the same work performed by women and men across all industries in Spain represents an average differential of 14.9 percent per hour of work performed, according to the most recent figures for 2017 published in Spanish news media reports.
Over the course of a year, the pay gap (known as the brecha salarial in Spain) results in women receiving on average 22.9 percent less in annual gross earnings than do their male counterparts. According to some calculations, the pay differential between men and women in some industries can run as high as 34 percent.
Spanish trade union federations say the existing pay gap is less the fault of direct wage discrimination than it is owing to a systemic inequality, lack of co-responsibility among men and women for household duties resulting in a de facto “tax on women” in the workplace — and just plain machismo on the part of employers and supervisors in the assignment of jobs that pay more.
Union representatives say the ongoing pay gap problem is the result of several specific factors that have a negative impact on a worker’s overall take-home pay. One of the chief downward pressures on gross take-home pay for women workers comes from supplemental pay for tasks or jobs that carry specific risks or hardship that are often assigned to male employees rather than women at the discretion of mostly male supervisors.
Another factor among full-time contract employees is availability for overtime work, since women in Spain spend an average of nearly two hours more at home on domestic chores and childcare and are therefore less available than male counterparts for overtime pay for extra hours performed on the job.
Similarly, because of the greater reliance in Spanish families on women to perform more of the household and childcare duties, many women prefer to work part-time, for which pay levels are lower than for the same job performed by full-time workers.
► Read More in Spanish at Europa Press, El País and Público …
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