International Equal Pay Day

The Equal Pay Day calls attention to the severe gender pay gap and symbolizes the day women start to earn, whereas men already earn their wages since January 1 of a given year (based on the assumption that both women and men earn the same wages).​The calculation of the Equal Pay Day depends on the gender pay gap measured as the average difference between women’s and men’s ages. In this regard, the Equal Pay Day differs in every country in correspondence to respective pay gap.

The reasons for the gender pay gap are manifold and intertwined. The list below shows major causes of the pay gap:

• “women’s work” is undervalued,
• women are missing in branches, like STEM subjects,
• women still face a glass ceiling when moving up the career ladder,
• women more often work part-time than men,
• women interrupt their careers more frequently due to family-related breaks,
• gender stereotypes prevail.

The Equal Pay Day does not only focusses on the wage gap, but is also a platform to discuss the causes behind the pay gap and to propose solutions on how to decrease the wage gap.