The EU average: 11.1% and falling slowly
According to Eurostat, the average unadjusted gender pay gap in the EU was 11.1% in 2024 (the latest reference year), down from 11.7% the year before. Progress is real but slow: the EU average has fallen by roughly five percentage points since 2011. At this pace, closing the gap entirely would take decades, which is precisely why the EU chose regulation over patience with the Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970).
| Measure | Gap | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Unadjusted (raw) | 11.1% (EU average) | The simple difference in average gross hourly earnings, no adjustments |
| Adjusted | Substantially lower | Controls for sector, role, experience, education and working time |
| Within the same job category | What the directive measures | Comparison of workers performing the same work or work of equal value |
Why do the unadjusted and adjusted gaps differ?
Much of the unadjusted gap reflects the fact that men and women work in different sectors, roles and hours. The adjusted gap shows the difference between comparable jobs. The EU Pay Transparency Directive targets exactly that level: gaps per category of workers, where a difference of more than 5% without objective justification triggers a joint pay assessment.
Gender pay gap by country: all 27 EU member states
How do the member states compare? Here is the full Eurostat picture for the 2024 reference year (unadjusted gap in gross hourly earnings):
| Rank | Country | Gender pay gap (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Estonia | 18.8% |
| 2 | Czechia | 18.5% |
| 3 | Austria | 17.6% |
| 4 | Hungary | 16.9% |
| 5 | Finland | 16.3% |
| 6 | Slovakia | 15.7% |
| 7 | Germany | 15.6% |
| 8 | Denmark | 14.0% |
| 9 | Latvia | 13.9% |
| 10 | Greece | 13.4% |
| 11 | Bulgaria | 12.0% |
| 12 | France | 11.8% |
| 13 | Cyprus | 11.8% |
| 14 | Sweden | 11.2% |
| 15 | Netherlands | 11.2% |
| - | EU-27 average | 11.1% |
| 16 | Lithuania | 10.0% |
| 17 | Ireland | 8.3% |
| 18 | Slovenia | 8.0% |
| 19 | Spain | 7.3% |
| 20 | Portugal | 7.0% |
| 21 | Croatia | 6.6% |
| 22 | Italy | 5.3% |
| 23 | Malta | 4.9% |
| 24 | Poland | 4.0% |
| 25 | Romania | 3.7% |
| 26 | Belgium | 0.7% |
| 27 | Luxembourg | -0.8% |
Source: Eurostat, unadjusted gender pay gap (online data code: earn_gr_gpgr2), 2024 reference year.
What the ranking does and does not tell you
A low national gap is not automatically good news, and a high one is not automatically evidence of discrimination. Three patterns worth knowing:
- Composition effects: Countries such as Italy and Romania combine low pay gaps with low female labour market participation. When fewer women work, those who do are often concentrated in better-paid positions, which compresses the measured gap.
- High-participation economies: The Nordic countries and Germany have high female participation across all pay levels, which tends to push the unadjusted gap up even where equal pay practice is comparatively strong. Denmark (14.0%) and Germany (15.6%) both sit above the EU average partly for this reason.
- Sector segregation: Everywhere in the EU, the gap is widest in financial services. In Hungary, the gap in financial and insurance activities reaches 40.3%, and it is substantial in that sector in every member state.
Spotlight: Denmark and Germany
Denmark: 14.0%.Denmark's unadjusted gap sits above the EU average despite decades of equality policy, driven largely by a strongly gender-segregated labour market and fewer women in top-paying roles. Denmark's draft implementation of the directive proposes extending pay gap reporting to employers with 50 or more employees, going beyond the directive's 100 employee minimum.
Germany: 15.6%. Germany has one of the larger gaps among big EU economies. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports a rounded 16% for 2024. Germany already operates a transparency regime under the Entgelttransparenzgesetz (2017), but it is widely regarded as having had limited effect, and Germany had not yet published a draft transposition of the EU directive as of mid 2026.
Full-time, part-time and sector patterns
The headline number hides large variation depending on how and where people work:
- Full-time workers: The 2024 gap for full-time workers ranges from -8.1% in Belgium (women earn more) to 19.9% in Latvia
- Part-time workers: Gaps range from -8.3% in Bulgaria to 23.8% in Slovenia
- Public vs private:The gap is generally wider in the private sector. In Cyprus the public sector gap is negative (-3.5%), while Czechia's public sector still shows 17.4%
- Financial services: The widest sector gap in most member states, peaking at 40.3% in Hungary
The lesson for employers: your organisation's gap will not look like the national average. The only number that matters for compliance is your own, measured per category of workers.
What do these numbers mean for your organisation?
With the EU Pay Transparency Directive, national statistics stop being background reading and become a compliance benchmark. From 7 June 2027, employers with 150 or more employees must report their own gender pay gap, and employers with 100 to 149 employees follow by 2031.
The directive requires you to act if the gap cannot be justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria and is not remedied within six months:
- A joint pay assessment with workers' representatives
- Remedial measures and an action plan
- Closing the unjustified gap within a reasonable period
Start by measuring your current pay gap per job category:
- Build a job architecture
- Analyse your pay data
- Identify and address problem areas
Sources
- Eurostat, Gender pay gap statistics (Statistics Explained), 2024 reference year
- Eurostat, unadjusted gender pay gap dataset (earn_gr_gpgr2)
- German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), Gender Pay Gap 2024
- Directive (EU) 2023/970 (EUR-Lex)
Figures are unadjusted gender pay gaps in gross hourly earnings, industry, construction and services (excluding public administration, defence and compulsory social security), as published by Eurostat. Last reviewed: July 2026.