A conference "Equal rights - equal pay - equal pensions," on Tuesday discussed ways to reduce the risk of poverty for women, and of the social problem of the gender pay and pension gap, which in Croatia amounts to 12.7 percent.

According to available data from the state statistics bureau the average gross salary in 2018 amounted to 8,837 kuna (€1,169) for men and 7,711 kuna (€1,020) for women, which indicates that the pay gap is 12.7 percent, Gender Ombudsman Visnja Ljubicic said opening the conference.

The conference was held in the month that marks Equal Pay Day which was observed on November 10 this year.

Labour and Pension System Minister Josip Aladrovic underlined that according to Eurostat data Croatia fares better than the European average. In Croatia that gap is 10.5% whereas the European average is 14.8%.

The thing that is concerning is that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a lot of lay-offs on the global level which will probably have a negative impact as far as gender differences in wages are concerned. Lay-offs in weaker paid sectors such as the textile industry where there was already a certain dose of uncertainty considering lower incomes and precarious contracts in fact affects women who are more predominant in that industry, said Aladrovic.

Science and Technology Radovan Fuchs underlined that women have exceeded men in education but the fact that more women have higher qualifications does not mean equal representation in research as men are predominant in technical fields.

Research has shown that statistical differences exist in income for men and women and Fuchs noted that the cause could be the greater representation of women at lower levels of the hierarchy and lower paid jobs. The research shows that women work longer and have more breaks for maternity and parental leave and are more likely to choose flexible forms of employment to balance work and private lives.

“That is why it is important to do away with stereotypes and traditional male and female jobs and careers and design mechanisms that will enable women to balance working and private lives,” said Fuchs.

(€1 = 7.56 kuna)