The gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and women expressed as a percentage of the average gross hourly earnings of men (without special payments).
Persons employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing, public service or enterprises with less than ten employees are not included.
The pay gap between men and women is a sign of a lack of equal treatment. It is however based on many causes. Women and men differ for example in working lives and in the choice of occupational sectors. In many cases, this leads to different careers and to earnings gaps.
Women earn 18% less
Women earned on average 18% less per hour than men in 2022. The differences in western Germany (and Berlin), amounting to 19%, were markedly larger than those in the eastern part of Germany (7%).
Gender pay gap has decreased slightly since 2016
Between 2006 and 2015, the earnings gap between women and men has been nearly constant. Since then, the pay gap has decreased slightly. Due to a change in the data source in 2022, the results are only comparable with previous years to a limited extent only. The Federal Government aims to reduce the pay gap to 10% by the year 2030.
Men earn more than women in almost every economic branch
In 2022 the gender pay gap differed considerably between economic branches. The strongest sectors were "financial and insurance activieties" and "professional, scientific and technical activities" (each 27%). Men earned on average more than women in "information and communication" (22%) and "human health and social work activities" (21%). The branches "trades, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles" (22%) and "manufacturing" (21%), where traditionally men are more represented than woman, also show relatively high differences in earnings.
The gender pay gap was relatively low in the sector "mining and quarrying" (2%) and "transport and storage" (3%). However, only a few women were employed here. The gender pay gap was also smaller in the accommodation and food service activities and in education - sectors in which also women work more often - at 9% in both cases.
Only in "water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities" women earned slightly more on average than their male colleagues (-1%).
It is striking that the gender pay gap is less pronounced in the public sector than in the private sector. At 6%, the pay gap in the public sector is much smaller than in the private sector (19%).
Information on the Indicator
Description or definition
Percentage difference of the average hourly gross earnings of men and women, proportionately on the average hourly gross earnings of men.
Source
2006 to 2021: Structure of Earnings Survey, Quarterly Earnings Survey. From 2022: Monthly Earnings Survey.
Information for interpretation
Due to a change in the data source from the quarterly structure of earnings survey/quarterly earnings survey to the monthly earnings survey in 2022, the results aare only comparable with previous years to a limited extent.
When interpreting the values, it should be taken into account, that they refer to the unadjusted gender pay gap. On that basis, it is not possible, to derive information on the difference in earnings between female and male persons employed with comparable pay-determining characteristics (e.g. activity, history of employment and education).
The unadjusted gender pay gap (GPG) is calculated for all NACE groups with exception of "agriculture and forestry, fishery", "public administration", "private households" and "extra-territorial organizations", as well as in all enterprises with at least 10 employees.
The population consists of all employees with no age restriction or restriction of the number of hours.
The hourly gross wage (with use of the arithmetic mean) includes paid overtime and excludes extraordinary payments.