The COVID-19 crisis risks turning the pay gap between women and men into a precipice. The pressure to withdraw from the labor market increases as a result of the inability to combine the professional duties with childcare responsibilities. As primary effects of the pandemic crisis and the restrictions imposed by the authorities during the quarantine period, the women became less active on the labor market, worked fewer hours or started to work remotely. These aspects had a negative impact on the remuneration, the pay gap between women and men becoming even wider. In the absence of polices and measures to simulate employment and the return to work among women, the pay gap risks widening considerably in time, IPN reports.
In a press release, the Partnership for Development Center says the difference between the salaries of men and women in the Republic of Moldova has followed a negative trend during the past eight years. The discrepancy between the average salary of men and that of women rises constantly, being now of 14.1%. The annual financial losses of women came to over 17,000 lei in 2020.
The pay gap in the long run determines inequalities in the size of old-age pensions. In monetary terms, the annual financial loses of a woman pensioner are significant and represent 5,300 lei on average. The sum shows to what extent the annual average pension of a woman is lower than that of a man. In urban areas, the gender difference in pensions is even higher. The women pensioners in the municipality of Chisinau in 2020 benefitted from an average annual pension that was by 12,500 lei lower than that of men, being two times higher than the annual average at national level.
According to the Partnership for Development Center, the pay gap is due to the fact that the women work mainly in areas with lower pays and that the men are ahead in career advancement. The women tend to negotiate lower salaries than the men.
However, objective and individual factors do not fully explain the pay gap between women and men. An analysis of the inequalities in remuneration carried out in 2019 shows that for an average pay gap of 25% – about 16.6% cannot be explained by objective factors. This means that if the distribution between men and women by posts, sectors, type of companies is equal, an inequality of 16.6% will be seen on the labor market anyway. This is due to the fact that there is discrimination against women on the labor market.
The Equal Pay Day is celebrated on February 22. This day calls attention to the severe gender pay gap and symbolizes the day women start to earn, whereas men already earn their wages since January 1 of a given year. The calculation of the Equal Pay Day depends on the gender pay gap measured as the average difference between women's and men's ages. In this regard, the Equal Pay Day differs in every country in correspondence to respective pay gap. According to calculations, in 2021 a woman should work until February 22 to get to a man’s earnings for the previous year, which is two more months of work.
