Women still face challenges and inequalities throughout working life

8.3.2021Gender equality

Today on International Women’s Day, we want to point out some of the challenges women face in their professional career. It is not fair that women are worse off just because of their gender.

Even if the majority graduating from universities are women, they rarely get to the top positions or top salaries. Women still face a 14.1 % gender pay gap and a 29% pension gap. Also, less than 7% of top companies’ CEOs are female, and just over a quarter are sit in the largest publicly listed company boards in the EU. During the COVID-19 pandemic the amount of “silent unpaid” work has increased for women: teleworking women spent on average 62 hours per week caring for children (compared to 36 hours for men) and 23 hours per week doing housework (15 hours for men).*

There are many things we can do to tackle these problems. Firstly, we need to break the glass ceilings. More women are needed in the top and in company boards – the women on boards directive has to be concluded. Also, the work-life balance directive has to be transposed sooner than later to even out the caring burden of women. Lastly, women face larger psychosocial risks, therefore it is time to put a directive in place on psychosocial risks and address the gender perspective.