5 recommendations to close the pay gap

While the Hungarian gender pay gap is 17.5%, the EU average is 12.7%, so our average is obviously significantly higher than the EU average. This is as if women in EU member stateswere working without pay for the rest of the year from 15 November, said Fanni Csernus, gender equality expert at Amnesty International Hungary, at an event held recently to turn the gender pay gap between men and women.

This situation has not changed much in Hungary, where 20 years ago it was 19.1%, according to Eurostat data, so it has been reduced by 1.6% in 20 years. The European Commission identifies four main reasons for the problem. The first is occupational segregation, which means that women are more likely to work in sectors and fields that are terribly underpaid, such as education, health or the social sector," the expert said. Around 80% of those working in education and health are women. This is what we might call horizontal occupational segregation.

The other is vertical occupational segregation, which is referred to by the term "sticky floors", which indicates that women are less likely to move up the career ladder. Even if they do manage to move upwards to higher positions, as the glass ceiling phenomenon suggests, they are constantly faced with various obstacles," he added. Fanni Csernus pointed out that we have one of the worst rates of women in senior positions in the EU. We have one of the lowest proportions of women in decision-making positions compared to the EU average.

We have one of the lowest proportions of women in decision-making positions compared to the EU average.

The third reason is the distribution of unpaid work at home, including domestic work, caring tasks and childcare. The unequal distribution of unpaid work often leads to women only being able to work part-time or part-time, it is much harder for them to get managerial positions, it is harder for them to get the training and opportunities they need, so unpaid work and paid work are very, very strongly linked," she said.

A fourth is wage discriminationitself, that although it would not be possible to do so under the equal treatment requirement, in very many cases women earn less than men even in the same position.

Filling the gaps, but how?

The European Parliament and the Council have therefore adopted a directive to reinforce the principle of equal pay for men and women for equal work or work of equal value by reinforcing the principle of equal pay for men and women and the necessary enforcement mechanisms, with the main aim of tackling pay inequalities caused by wage discrimination. According to the Amnesty expert, this directive mainly reflects this fourth point, but could also have an impact on the other areas listed. "It is very often thought that the pay gap is the same as wage discrimination, but no, they are two different concepts, although wage discrimination, and therefore the violation of the principle of equal pay for equal work, is part of the pay gap, but this one is basically referring to a wider problem," he added. This does not mean that wage parity will solve everything, it is the first step in making these differences visible.

"The EU directive stipulates that transparency must be achieved when filling new jobs and when increasing salaries, and that if there is a difference of 5% or more that cannot be justified by gender-neutral criteria, employers must take steps to reduce it. They must therefore develop a strategy to reduce inequalities and involve workers' representatives.The scope of the legislation covers both the public and private sectors, part-time workers, fixed-term workers, temporary agency workers and, importantly, senior workers," the expert said. This directive will impose mandatory steps on employers with at least 100 employees, who will have to report every three years from June 2031 on the basis of their data for the previous calendar year, and will apply to employers with at least 150 employees from June 2027. They will also have to do it every three years, and those with at least 250 employees will also have to do their first report in June 2027, and they will have to do it again every year.

5 recommendations for successful practice

Amnesty International Hungary's 5-point recommendation follows the main points and structure of the EU directive. He added: "One of the key elements of this directive is the form in which the information is provided. An important element is information at employee level, so how employees can inform each other about their own pay data, and how employee representatives can be involved in the information at all. This annual information should also include the right of employees to ask for information on the pay gap between their peers, which does not mean that they can ask for information on exactly how much XY earns, but on the average difference between men's and women's pay in their category. In addition, it is important that the employer regularly informs the employee of his other rights under the Directive." The proposal then goes on to stress the importance of training: training for employers, employees and their representatives. The fifth part of the recommendation, following the remedy, is the strategy an employer should develop to reduce not only the value of the pay gap or the value of data on pay discrimination, but also to increase gender equality in the workplace context more generally. "Here we focus on four main areas, job advertising and selection, reducing gender stereotypes in everyday work, promoting work-life balance and equality and equal opportunities in performance appraisal and promotion"," added the Amnesty expert.

Differences in practice

"I can also look at the Hungarian SME sector, where the proportion of female managers is a bit different from the multi world, where we usually talk about 8% of the top 50 companies in terms of turnover," said Andrea Dintsér, head of the Hungarian Business Community of CEOs' Women Leaders Club, at the presentation of Amnesty Hungary's recommendation to companies. According to the data, 40 percent of the total number of companies in Hungary are mixed-managed, and 17 percent of them have only women as managers.

At Tesco, 66% of small stores are run by women, but 41% of hypermarkets are run by women. "We know this needs to change: succession planning, career paths need to be fine-tuned, we have introduced internal mentoring. We've done a lot of things, and in the last year or two we've made progress, significant progress," said Nóra Hevesi, Head of Communications and Campaigns at Tesco Hungary. The overall gender pay gap in the store is 7%, in the office it is over 20%, and the average pay gap at Tesco this year is 15.5%. "Incidentally, at another event, Erste Bank CEO Jelasity Radován and Telekom CEO Tibor Rékasi said that they didn't have the figures in the past. Over time, they thought it was important to address any wage differentials that might exist in the company. They also started on the road to change by measuring. As soon as they had summaries of the pay gap, they drew up an action plan and started implementing it, for example by spending 10% of the money they had earmarked for pay rises at Erste to close the gap," added Andrea Dintsér.

In the UK, it has been mandatory to publish data on the pay gap since 2017. It's already a matter of course there, and I would add that it is in most EU member states too.Tesco's head of communications stressed that we have until 2027, but they have already started interpreting and implementing the recommendations and are suggesting everyone start thinking now about the data they have now, because implementation is not easy. Firstly, it is not easy to do, it is very complex and secondly, the conclusions are not necessarily clear," added Nóra Hevesi. Tesco, by the way, has just published its fourth Diversity Report, in which it transparently and voluntarily discloses its overall gender pay gap, the proportion of female and male managers and the age structure of its staff, among other things.