Men earned more than women in Slovenia in 2016, with men making average monthly gross earnings of €1,732, compared to €1,630 for women, Slovenian Statistical Office announced on September 28.
Slovenia is the most progressive country in the region and has the highest salaries, but the fact that its women earn less than men more than decade after it joined EU shows that work is still needed on gender equality.
Men’s gross monthly salaries in 2016 were 2.8% higher than the average while the average monthly gross earnings of women were 3.3% lower than the average.
According to provisional data, in 2016 average monthly gross earnings of people in paid employment in Slovenia (calculated from annual gross earnings) amounted to €1,685, which is 2% more than in the previous year.
In 2016, average monthly gross earnings of women were lower than average monthly gross earnings of men in almost all activities.
The exceptions were water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (by 11.7%), construction (by 13.1%), and transportation and storage (by 10.1%). In those sectors, most workers were men, but (in the first and third activities only one fifth were women, and in construction only one tenth), but women mainly had better paid jobs.
The difference between men's and women's average gross earnings was the highest in human health and social work activities and in financial and insurance activities (in the first activity men received 23.6% more and women 5.6% less than the average in this activity, in the second activity men received 17.5% more and women 10.2% less than the average in this activity).
According to data on the annual structure of earnings, the distribution of gross earnings in Slovenia is very asymmetric. The median of gross earnings, which divides the population into two halves, was €1,394 in 2016 (€1,412 for men and €1,370 for women). Half of the people in paid employment had average monthly gross earnings lower than €1,394. The first quartile was €1,017, which means that 25% of people in paid employment had average monthly gross earnings lower than €1,017. On the other hand, only 10% of the people in paid employment received average monthly gross earnings higher than €2,730, while only 1% of the people in paid employment had average monthly gross earnings higher than €5,903, the statistical office said.