Research into women’s wages: Employers hardly see any wage discrimination

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The Swiss Employers’ Association (SAV) gives the larger companies good marks when it comes to equal pay: according to a study by the University of St. Gallen commissioned by the SAV, the gender pay gap, which cannot be explained, is only 3.3 percent.

For example, it could be explained that an employee took several years off due to the birth of two children and therefore does not have the same professional experience as her male colleague.

The federal government sees it differently

Only: the study contradicts the information from the federal government. According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics (BFS), women earn drastically less than men. According to the BFS, the private sector wage gap was 19.5 percent in 2020. And according to the federal government, it is not the waitresses and saleswomen who earn much less – in absolute terms and in percentage terms – but the ladies in the doubles at banks and insurance companies, whose bills are paid almost a third less than the men in suits. The inexplicable part of the difference is 45.3 percent in the private sector.

The employers’ organization led by President Valentin Vogt (62), who stepped down at the end of this month, only looked at wages in the private sector. Those who work for the Confederation, cantons and municipalities are therefore not included in the survey.

It must be put in perspective

In addition, only companies with 100 or more employees were included. Logical, because according to the current Equal Opportunities Act, only employers of this size are required to carry out a wage analysis every four years – with no sanctions whatsoever for wage evaders.

The BFS does not take into account the 100 limit in its analysis. It is even stated that wage differences are greatest in companies with less than 20 employees. This partly explains the different findings.

However, the SAV study only considers companies that performed the analysis using the Federal Government’s Equal Pay Tool (Logib). This can be explained: this makes the companies comparable.

Because of this – and because information was missing – the University of St. Gallen could only take into account the information of 461 companies.

Discrimination becomes a trivial crime

In fact, Logib is based on a self-declaration by the companies. There is also a tolerance threshold of 5 percent. That is, if the wage discrimination is no more than 5 percent, it’s a trivial offense, you close your eyes and forget about it. Only what is above that is reported.

The SAV study concludes that 99.3 percent of the 461 companies surveyed – or 458 companies – are clean and only three companies are not. However, if one disregards the arbitrary tolerance limit, the unexplained wage difference rises to 8.3 percent.

Men also sometimes lose weight

Nevertheless, the study offers interesting findings:

• In 124 of the 130 cases the women earn less than the men, but in 6 cases the men lose.
• The gender pay gap is said to be the smallest in Ticino. But only 23 companies were investigated there. The validity is very limited.
• In eastern Switzerland, an unexplained wage difference was found in 28 out of 73 companies – about one third of the companies. Eastern Switzerland is therefore lagging behind when it comes to equal pay. Here too, the total number of companies is so small that the question of representativeness can be raised.
• There is indeed a glass ceiling for women that few break through: when it comes to promotions to managerial positions, female applicants have a much harder time than their male colleagues.

Source:Blick