Women in Lithuania earn 14% less than men. Even in sectors dominated by women, their salaries are often significantly lower.
Experts interviewed by LRT Radio note that the stereotypical distinction between male and female professions is becoming less salient.
“If you ask me, in what fields I wouldn’t expect to see much women, I would shake my head very strongly. It seems that there are women in the ranks of the riflemen, in the military, in the education sector, in the ranks of rectors, in the ranks of truck drivers,” says Deividas Rafanavicius, a board member of the association Lydere (“female leader”).
However, even though women’s professional opportunities are expanding, they still lag far behind men in terms of salaries.
According to Julita Varanauskiene, head of the Social Insurance Fund Sodra, there is a significant 14% gap between women’s and men’s pay. The reasons are many, she thinks.
Rita Karavaitiene, marketing manager at CV Online, notes that men are more likely to apply for positions with higher salaries.
“In those positions where higher salaries are offered, men dominate. If you look at the highest salaries in the workplace, the top ten are top managers, information technology, law, banking and economics. It is in these areas that men get higher positions and higher salaries,” says Kavaitiene.
In some of these fields, such as economics, women make up the majority of workers, but men still earn more, Kavaitiene notes. The same is true in the public sector, where men tend to be in more senior positions and therefore receive higher salaries, despite being an overall minority.
Rafanavicius, of the association Lydere, believes that stereotypes about a woman’s potential pregnancy, perpetuated by employers, can prevent women from getting the higher-paid job they want.
“I have the feeling that there’s still the stereotype that if you hire a woman, you take on more risk because of pregnancy or maternity leave. If children in the family fall ill, the stereotype is still that the woman, the mother, will stay at home and take care of them,” he says.
Varanauskiene, the head of Sodra, also identifies a woman’s marital status as one of the levers. Attitudes of female employees themselves, not only employers, play a role.
“Women of a certain age prioritise family and choose to stay at home,” believes Varanauskiene.
According to Karavaitiene, of CV Online, women often underestimate themselves for one reason or another, including their marital status, and do not dare to negotiate for a higher salary, which is why it goes to men.
“Women often tend to underestimate themselves, while men have more confidence and are much bolder in applying for jobs. Even if they don’t meet the requirements, they have more confidence and more bargaining power,” says Karavaitiene.
According to a survey conducted by Sodra, the biggest gap between men’s and women’s salaries is in the age group between 30 and 40. Naturally, lower salaries also lead to lower retirement pensions for women.
“Imagine a young woman initially hesitates to choose a career in technology, then has a child and is left to look after that child. At that time, her income is lower because she receives social security benefits that do not make up her full salary. Two or three years later, she goes back to work and returns to the same salary she had when she left. According to today’s data, the difference between men’s and women’s pensions is 18%,” Varanauskiene tells LRT Radio.
Regulation could reduce the current gender pay gap of 14%, she believes. She cites the current regime in the public administration sector as an example, where “salaries are set on the basis of quantitative criteria, with very clearly defined ceilings and minimums”, so there is no gap between men and women.
The Sodra study also found that women working in a company were better off when the organisation was also managed by a woman.
“A female manager is better at recognising women, spotting other talented women in the organisation and inviting them to join her team. In this way, she educates, nurtures and encourages her female colleagues, and perhaps, from the outside, other women, seeing that they are successful, are also more courageous in applying for better-paid, more responsible positions,” says Varanauskiene. (LRT/Business World Magazine)
