Cambridge University study suggests gender pay gap in the Czech Republic much bigger than average

When it comes to equal pay, the Czech Republic is floundering far below average, suggests research conducted by the University of Cambridge. A report into employment and pay in 10 European countries found that while Czech women worked in more or less the same jobs as Czech men, they were very far from enjoying the same wages. A little earlier, I spoke to the report’s author Dr Robert Blackburn to ask him about this new research:

“Well this is part of quite a long-running study now, which is on gender segregation - that is the tendency for men and women to work in different occupations and also, in looking at this, to see whether women were advantaged or disadvantaged. The usual assumption is that women are disadvantaged, of course, in the pay that they get from their occupation, and in the status of their occupations.”

And, very generally, what did you find when looking at the Czech Republic? What were the most striking things you found out about women in the workplace in the Czech Republic?

“We measured overall segregation, which is the tendency to work in different occupations, and then it is two dimensions, which are the inequality entailed in this, and the horizontal dimension is the difference without inequality. Now, on overall segregation, the Czech Republic ranked fairly low, meaning that there were fairly low differences between the occupations of men and women. They came 23rd out of 30 on our measures, compared with say 13 or 15, depending on just which measure we use, for the United Kingdom.”

You found that in the United Kingdom women dominate high status jobs. Was that also the case in the Czech Republic, or are you saying that it is, in fact, very balanced here?

“In terms of the high status jobs, women are better off in the Czech Republic than they are in the United Kingdom. Women are in a sort of average position in the Czech Republic, whereas the advantage to women is low in the United Kingdom.”

And what about in terms of equal pay in each of these countries, is equal pay in the Czech Republic still a long way off?

“The position in the UK is fairly average – out of 20 countries, the UK comes eighth. The Czech Republic on pay has a high gender difference in favour of men. After Japan, the Czech Republic is the second highest out of 20 countries in advantage to men on pay.”

So, the overall picture is that women are working in more or less the same jobs as men in the Czech Republic, but receiving a lot less pay than them. Why do you think this is?

“It is possible that work experience comes into this. Most of the difference I would expect to be lying in the different occupations that men and women actually do. For instance, in Britain, the heavy, dirty, unpleasant work, which is low status work done by men, is fairly well paid, because the pay has to compensate for the unpleasantness of the jobs. So that gives men an advantage in pay, but not in the status of the jobs, and I expect the same would be true in the Czech Republic.”