Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

GENDER

Switzerland plunges down global gender ranking

Switzerland has dropped a whopping 10 places in the annual Global Gender Gap Report produced by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF).

Published: 2 November 2017 07:36 CET
Switzerland plunges down global gender ranking
Gajus-Images/Depositphotos

It took 21st place after slipping to 11th place last year from 8th the year before that. 

In its 2017 report issued on Thursday, WEF said a decade of slow progress towards better parity between the sexes had screeched to a halt, warning the global gender gap was now widening.

In recent years, women have made significant progress towards equality in a number of areas such as education and health.

But the global trend now seems to have made a U-turn, especially in workplaces, where full gender equality is not expected to materialize until 2234, WEF said.

The organization's annual report tracks the disparities between the sexes in four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.

A year ago WEF estimated that it would take 83 years to close the remaining gap.

But since then women's steady advances in the areas of education, health and political representation have plateaued, and for the fourth year running, equality in the workplace has slipped further from view.

Thursday's report said that at the current rate of progress, it would now take a full 100 years on average to achieve overall gender equality.

Overall, the Nordic countries once again dominated the top of the table: men and women were most equal in Iceland, followed by Norway and Finland.

Rwanda came in fourth, with another Nordic country, Sweden, in fifth place.

They were joined by Nicaragua, Slovenia, Ireland, New Zealand and the Philippines in the top 10.

WEF said Switzerland's 10-place drop was due to a widening gender gap on the Political Empowerment subindex.

There was a smaller share of women in ministerial positions as well as a falling share of women in professional and technical roles.

The country’s progress recently has not fully kept pace with that of the region’s other top performers on the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, it said.

More positively, Switzerland does record a modest positive increase on the wage equality for similar work indicator.

Among the world's 20 leading economies, France fared the best, taking 11th place overall, up from 17th place last year and 70th place in 2006.

France's rise is largely thanks to increasing numbers of women in politics, including complete parity among government ministers.

The United States meanwhile dropped four spots to 49th place due to women's dwindling political representation, with a “significant decrease in gender parity in ministerial level positions”, the report said

Syria, Pakistan and finally Yemen rounded off the rankings.

 

EQUALITY

Why is the gender pay gap so big in German-speaking countries?

In Germany, Switzerland and Austria, women are losing ground in the fight for pay equity, according to a recent analysis from the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research.

Published: 8 March 2024 15:05 CET
Why is the gender pay gap so big in German-speaking countries?

As DACH countries celebrate International Women’s Day, inequalities in the workplace still remain – especially when it comes to remuneration. 

Despite efforts to close the gender pay gap, new research reveals that men still receive much higher bonuses than women in German-speaking countries.

“The gender pay gap in bonus payments is significantly bigger than in basic salary,” said Ifo researcher Michaela Paffenholz in a report published on Tuesday. “These major differences make the gap in total salary even larger.”

Ifo’s data reveals the pay gap in performance related bonuses extends across the DACH region. In Germany, women receive an average of 6.1 percent less in bonus payments, while in Austria, the gap between men and women is 7.2 percent and in Switzerland, women receive an average of 5.2 percent less in bonuses.

The prevalence of performance-based pay continues to grow across Europe. The number of workers receiving performance bonuses nearly doubled from 2000 to 2015 to include nearly a third of European workers, according to a European Trade Union Institute working paper. 

Reducing the gender pay gap is one of the top priorities of the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025. But the issue of unequal bonus pay has received little focus from policymakers. 

Ifo Institute’s analysis found that bonus payments can increase the gender wage gap. 

In Germany, the pay gap between men and women in basic salary is 2.7 percent, but bonuses increase this gap to 3 percent in total salary. In Austria, the gender gap in basic salary is 2.3 percent, with bonus pay bumping that up to 2.9 percent.

In Switzerland, the gap is 1.2 percent for basic salary; bonus payments increase this to 1.6 percent for total salary.

READ ALSO:

Still, the gender pay gap is not limited to hourly earnings and bonus payments: working in lower-paid sectors and fewer working hours also contribute to the gap between men and women’s pay.

According to statistics from the Germany’s Statistical Office, working women in Germany earned 18 percent less than men in 2023. 

This story translates across the DACH region. In Austria women earned 18.4 percent less gross wages per hour than men in 2022. Swiss women face a similar reality. Working women earned 18 percent less than men in 2022, despite “equal pay for work of equal value” being enshrined in the federal constitution since 1981. 

Larger companies are overrepresented in the market data collected by Mercer, so the studies are not representative of all companies in the DACH region. 

SHOW COMMENTS