Data · Eurostat 2024
The gender pay gap in the EU, country by country
In 2024, women in the EU earned on average 11.1% less per hour than men (unadjusted gap, Eurostat). The spread is wide: from Estonia at 18.8% to Luxembourg at -0.8%. From 7 June 2027, the Pay Transparency Directive turns this national statistic into an employer-level, published number.
Unadjusted gender pay gap, 2024 (% of men’s average hourly earnings)
at or above the EU average (11.1%) below the average negative (women earn more)
Source: Eurostat, dataset sdg_05_20 (unadjusted gender pay gap), retrieved 2026-07-10. 2024 figures are provisional until the Structure of Earnings Survey benchmark lands (December 2026). Enterprises with 10+ employees.
Reading the table honestly
The unadjusted gap compares all working men with all working women — it mixes pay discrimination with occupational segregation, part-time patterns and participation effects. A small national number is not a clean bill of health: in several low-gap countries, fewer women work, and those who do cluster in better-paid roles, which flatters the average. The number that decides your legal exposure is not on this page: it is your own gap, per category of work of equal value — the one the Directive makes you compute, report and justify.
What changes from 7 June 2027
Employer-level reporting starts: employers with 150+ employees report first (on the preceding year’s data), and the monitoring bodies publish the results. National averages stop being the story — your number becomes searchable. Compute it now, free, in your browser →
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does the unadjusted gap measure?
The difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and of women, as a percentage of the men's average, in enterprises with 10 or more employees. It compares the whole workforce, not people in the same job — that is why it is called unadjusted.
Why do countries like Romania or Italy show a small gap?
A low unadjusted gap can reflect equality — or low female labour-market participation: where fewer women work, the ones who do are disproportionately in better-paid positions, which shrinks the measured gap. That is why the Directive works on categories of equal value inside each employer instead of national averages.
How can Luxembourg be negative?
A negative gap means women's average hourly earnings exceed men's — in Luxembourg's case largely a composition effect: a highly qualified female workforce concentrated in well-paid sectors.
Does a low national gap mean employers there have nothing to do?
No. The Directive's obligations — reporting per category of work of equal value, pay ranges in recruitment, workers' information rights — apply identically in every member state, whatever the national average. A company can sit above 5% per category in a country with a 4% national gap.