---
title: "Estonia has one of the highest gender pay gaps in the EU"
id: "60385"
type: "post"
slug: "estonia-has-one-of-the-highest-gender-pay-gaps-in-the-eu"
published_at: "2022-03-09T17:48:33+00:00"
modified_at: "2022-03-09T17:48:34+00:00"
url: "https://estonianworld.com/business/estonia-has-one-of-the-highest-gender-pay-gaps-in-the-eu/"
markdown_url: "https://estonianworld.com/business/estonia-has-one-of-the-highest-gender-pay-gaps-in-the-eu.md"
excerpt: "According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, Estonia has the second highest gender pay gap among the member states. The unadjusted gender pay gap […]"
taxonomy_category:
  - "Business"
publisher: "Estonian World"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Silver Tambur"
author_url: "https://estonianworld.com/author/silver/"
---

# Estonia has one of the highest gender pay gaps in the EU

![Image](https://estonianworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Quality-Control-Woman_Annika-Haas-1024x683.jpg)

An Estonian female worker conducting a quality control. Photo by Annika Haas.

By  [Silver Tambur](https://estonianworld.com/author/silver/)
  ·  March 9, 2022  · [Business](https://estonianworld.com/category/business/)
 · 1 minute of reading

### According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, Estonia has the second highest gender pay gap among the member states.

The unadjusted gender pay gap shows the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and women expressed as a percentage of the average gross hourly earnings of men.

The indicator is calculated for enterprises with 10 or more employees.

According to Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics agency, in 2020, women’s gross hourly earnings were on average 13.0 per cent below those of men in the EU. In the space of eight years, between 2012 and 2020, the EU gender pay gap was reduced from 16.4 per cent to 13.0 per cent.

The highest gender pay gap were observed in Latvia (22.3%), Estonia (21.1%), Austria (18.9%) and Germany (18.3%).

The differences were smallest in Luxembourg (0.7%), Romania (2.4%), Slovenia (3.1%) and Italy (4.2%).

[https://estonianworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Gender_pay_gap_data2020-01-scaled.jpeg](https://estonianworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Gender_pay_gap_data2020-01-scaled.jpeg)

Gender pay gap among the European Union member states, according to Eurostat.

For years, Estonia had the highest gender pay gap in the EU.

In 2020, Statistics Estonia, the country’s official statistics agency, said the gross hourly earnings of female employees were 17.1% lower than the gross hourly earnings of male employees and the “gap was narrowing”. Judging by the fresh [data by Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/labour-market/earnings/database)
, the gender pay gap in Estonia is widening again.

## About The Author

![Avatar photo](https://estonianworld.com/wp-content/uploads/local-avatars/2/1572652467-bpfull-100x100.jpg)

[Silver Tambur](https://estonianworld.com/author/silver/)
Silver Tambur, co-founder and publisher of *Estonian World*, studied journalism at the University of Tartu and politics at Birkbeck, University of London. He has edited Estonian Public Broadcasting’s English news and contributed to *Business Sense*, *Deutsche Welle*, and *Radio New Zealand*. He is currently editor-in-chief of *Trialoog*, TalTech’s business and research portal. You can also follow him on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/SilverTambur)
 and like [his page on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/silvertamburpage/)
. You can write to Silver at [silver@estonianworld.com](mailto:silver@estonianworld.com)
.