Surprise, surprise: even one of the most egalitarian countries in the world discriminates against women in the workplace! The Dutch pay gap has increased, with women earning less than men in most sectors. 🤨
Recruitment specialists Intermediair and Nyenrode Business University conducted a joint study into the Dutch gender pay gap and the results were shocking. Over the past two years, men’s salaries have increased disproportionately to women’s.
Men earn more than women… still
In particular, the average male salary has increased by 7.4%, while the average female salary has increased by 5%.
The fields with the highest gender pay gap, you ask? In the ICT and judiciary sectors, men earn a whopping 22% more than women. Market research, meanwhile, has men earning a whole 27% more than women!
If that wasn’t infuriating enough, Dutch men may even earn more than €10,000 per year more than women in the same field.
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Oké, oké — it’s not all bad. There was one sector in which women did earn more than men. In the media sector, women earn a whole 50 euros more! Pop the champagne; inequality is over!
Is it because of education?
Unfortunately, this inequality exists across the board. At every level of education, men earned more than women on average. The difference is even starker among workers with a higher education.
According to RTL Nieuws, women with a higher education earn even less than men of a similar education level.
But it gets even crazier! Get this: men with a lower level of education received a larger pay raise than women in higher education. Let’s say that again: women with higher education still earn less than men with lower education.
@novaramedia The media’s ingrained misogyny was exposed when Moya Lothian McLean appeared on Sky News…to talk about misogyny. Moya appeared on Sky News on Wednesday evening to discuss comments made by Laurence Fox on GB News where he asked what “self-respecting man” would “climb into bed” with Politics Joe reporter Ava Evans. Fox has been suspended by the channel alongside Dan Wootton, who was interviewing him. On Novara Live on Thursday, Moya explained how the debate in the media highlighted structural misogyny. #politics #ukpolitics #media #sexism #uk ♬ original sound – Novara Media
This doesn’t make us want to drop everything and live in the woods with just plants and wild animals at all… 🙄
Why does this happen?
The study didn’t make it very clear why men are earning more than women. But let’s be honest, we all know why: sexism (there, we said it).
“Our labour market has been shaped by men with wives working at home full-time, but the reality has changed,” Julia Wouters tells RTL Nieuws.
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So what can we do about it? One solution is for employees to be chosen based on their results rather than attendance, which is how it’s mostly done now.
As Julia Wouters tells RTL Nieuws, another solution is to show how much men earn and how much women earn. This will at least make the statistics undeniable, and a real conversation can start.
Are you surprised by these statistics? Tell us in the comments!