This week, a debate on the gender pension gap took place in the plenum of the EU Parliament between MEPs and the EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen. The existence of a general pay gap between men and women has been a well-known fact for a long time. However, what is less well known is that this also has a direct effect on women’s pensions, which in turn poses a greater risk of poverty for older women. The Commission is now intent on doing everything to ensure that measures are taken early in women’s working life to tackle the threatened pension gap. Unfortunately, Austria is the Member State with the highest gender wage and pension gap in the EU.

Thyssen: The EU Commission cares about social fairness

Employment Commissioner Thyssen stressed in her opening statement that right from the start of the term of office the EU Commission had taken up the cause of social fairness. This means that it intends to take in particular measures to reduce the gender wage and pension gap. The pension gap in the EU amounts to 40 % on average and is associated with extreme risks. What is interesting, however, is that different countries have different levels of pension gaps. That is why, according to Thyssen, reforms are needed, which aim at equal opportunities, making sure that these become effective before people are reaching pension age. Hence, the EU Commission will present a strategic commitment on gender equality before the end of the year. It will form an overall platform for European initiatives to improve gender equality and also specifically address the causes of the gender pension gap. However, Thyssen also mentioned that as a consequence of the continuous increase of the female employment rate most Member States had seen a significant reduction of many gender differences over the past three decades.

MEP Steinruck: Women in the EU earn about 16 % less than men, which is also reflected with regard to future pensions

MEP Jutta Steinruck, S&D faction took Commissioner Thyssen up on her promise and criticised her indirectly by saying that the Commission only “now” would react to the problem of gender pension gaps. From her point of view, what was really the issue were wage differences, which had to be eradicated. To achieve this, commented Steinruck, it was necessary to introduce mandatory action plans to achieve equality of women and men in the labour market as well as reports on pay equity, whereby the latter also had to be mandatory for employers. All MEPs agreed that there was still a lot to be done before any success would be visible at last. For years, the Chamber of Labour has been supporting also at EU level women's interests and in particular gender equality politics, which also oblige Member States to act. Following its announcement, the EU Commission must now effectively make concrete proposals to ensure that the gender wage and pension gap in the EU will soon be a thing of the past.