Examining the gender wage gap in Switzerland
How much is the gender wage gap in Switzerland and what lies behind the difference in salaries between men and women?
Women working full time in Zurich earn 19% less than men. The gross median salary for a man working in Zurich in 2014 was 7,200 CHF, while for women it was 5,800 CHF. The report released by the Canton of Zurich shows that while the gender wage gap is considerable, it has decreased from 25% in 2008 to 21% in 2012, and then to 19% in 2014.
Breaking the wage gap down
The 2016 salary equality report by the Canton of Zurich found a total gender wage gap of 19% between men and women working in Zurich.
The report calculated the median wage for men and women, thereby excluding the outliers on both ends.
However, interestingly, the report found that in the upper range, 25% of men earned more than 10,000 CHF per month, while just 10% of the women did.
Nonetheless, 15.7% of the wage difference between men and women can be explained by personal and professional factors such as education, job position, marital status, and employment hours.
Marriage in particular has large effect on the salary difference and the effect is reversed for the genders.
Married men earn more than single men, while married women earn significantly less than single women.
In general, men tend to have a higher educational level and occupy jobs with a higher competence and management level.
However, women are still underrepresented in higher management levels compared to their education level, industry, and job position.
The wage gap increases with age as women’s careers peak earlier
In general, salaries for men grow faster at the beginning of their career and continue to grow over a longer period of time than for women.
The salary curve levels off age mid-30s and then stagnates from there onwards. For men, their salaries continue to grow until the late-40s and then level off.
There is a caveat, however, single women and women without children experience a similar salary curve to men. Thus, the negative impact of having children on women’s salaries is clear.
Children and marriage cost women more
Overall, marriage and having a family impacts women’s salaries negatively.
The salaries of single men and women start similarly but with marriage, the gap widens. This effect is closely tied to having a family.
Marriage and motherhood are still closely related, as 70% of married couples between the age of 25 – 40 years old have children.
Women still largely have the primary responsibility for raising children and the household. This also influences the number of hours that women work in paid positions, with over one-third of women working in part-time paid positions.
Marriage and motherhood and the employment breaks that result from this, cause a sharp drop in salary and a reduction in work hours for women.
These significantly negatively affect the average salary of women.
Unexplained factors in the gender wage gap
A remaining 8.7% of the gender wage gap between men and women in Switzerland remains unexplained.
This percentage is large and cannot be explained in the statistics released by the Canton of Zurich. Discovering the reasons behind this unexplained wage gap is important as it could potentially point to discrimination against women or other important factors that have so far been overlooked.
Important to note, is that although a large amount of the gender wage gap can be ‘explained’ in the statistics released by the Canton, these merely show the factors that affect the gender wage gap but they do not necessarily justify wage discrepancy.
One example of getting women into higher management positions could mean increasing the social acceptance of part-time roles in management levels. Or to enable women to take jobs in higher-paying industries, the environment and climate for women working in these industries may need to be examined.
You can find the full report by the Canton of Zurich on wage equality here.