In Austria, women earn 17 percent less than men, so statistically speaking from 30 October they work for free until the end of the year. When part-time employees are also considered, men earn as much as 36 percent more.
For the president of the Chamber of Labor Renate Anderl, the goal must be to achieve equal pay for women and men and to abolish the Equal Pay Day. To do this, however, the government must put an end to the “welfare crisis”, Anderl said today.
Better pay is required for nursing work
At a press conference, Anderl was “annoyed” that Equal Pay Day is only being moved a few days a year. This year’s value of 17% is also due less to an improvement and more to the fact that in the calculation year 2020, part-time work linked to the coronavirus caused men to lose overtime pay and brought them closer to the women’s income, she stressed.
The gender income gap can only be narrowed if there are better pay conditions and better frameworks for paid care work, i.e. work in education, childcare and the social sector.
At the moment, here you get an average gross hourly wage of 13.70 euros, in the technical professions it is 20.10 euros, as AK economist Katharina Mader calculated. Anderl called for a change of course here, that care work is “the basis for our social coexistence” and that we all depend on these services at different stages of our life.
