Last year, the gender pay gap decreased

The gross hourly earnings without irregular bonuses and premiums were 4.89 euros for female employees and 6.37 euros for male employees. Compared to 2013, hourly earnings increased 6.7% for females and 4.7% for males. This was the main reason for the decrease in the gender pay gap (the difference between the hourly earnings of male and female employees).

In 2014, the gender pay gap remained the highest in financial and insurance activities (38.3%), where the gross hourly earnings of female employees were 7.81 euros and those of male employees were 12.65 euros. Compared to 2013, the gap decreased by 3.5 percentage points in this economic activity.

The pay gap was present in all economic activities, but the smallest difference between the gross hourly earnings of male and female employees was in water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation services, in which male employees’ hourly earnings were 1.4% higher than of those of female employees.

With regard to major groups of occupation, the biggest difference between the hourly earnings of male and female employees was among craft and related trades workers (31.2%) and the smallest among skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers (5.8%).

Statistics Estonia and Eurostat use different methodologies to calculate the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap published by Eurostat does not take into account the indicators of enterprises and institutions with fewer than 10 employees; it also excludes the earnings of employees in agriculture, forestry and fishing and in public administration and defence. According to Eurostat’s calculations, the gender pay gap in Estonia is one of the highest in the European Union (29.9% in 2013). According to Statistics Estonia, the gender pay gap in Estonia in 2013 was 24.8%, taking into account all enterprises and institutions and all economic activities.

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of male and female employees, divided by the average gross hourly earnings of male employees, and is expressed as a percentage.

The average gross earnings, as used in the calculation of the gender pay gap, do not include irregular bonuses and premiums.

Statistics Estonia conducts the survey “Structure of Earnings” since 2005 based on international methodology. The survey is conducted for October. Since 2010, the survey is conducted every four years. It is a thorough survey of earnings which provides the consumers with more detailed data compared to the quarterly wages statistics. The data of the survey reflect the number of employees, structure and earnings by occupation, economic activity, age, sex, type of contract, full-time and part-time work and education. In the years between two “Structure of Earnings” surveys, data is only collected about the number of male and female employees, the number of hours worked and the earnings.