The wage inequality between men and women in Portugal is still significant and, according to Eurostat and reported by ECO, it has been increasing for three consecutive years. According to data recently released by the European Union studies office, the parity ratio increased from 8.9% in 2018 to 11.9% at the end of 2021.

Wage gap increase

Among the 25 European Union countries for which Eurostat collected data, only Portugal and three other countries (Hungary, Romania and Norway) recorded an increase in the wage gap between men and women in this period.

Even adopting a more optimistic view, considering that in the future the wage gap between men and women in Portugal will reduce at the pace of the last five years (-0.4 percentage points per year), it will only be in 2051 that there is wage parity between men and women in Portugal, according to ECO calculations.

Among the 25 countries in the European bloc that Eurostat presents data for, Portugal will be only the 15th country in which wage parity by gender will be achieved sooner, behind countries like Luxembourg, which reached parity in 2021, Spain (2029), Belgium (2046) or Germany (2047). Even so, it will be 35 years earlier than the average for European Union countries and 104 years earlier than the World Economic Forum estimates to reach parity in the world.