• According to the annual calculation of the women's collective Les Glorieuses, women started working "for free" at 9.22am this Wednesday until the end of 2021.

  • This is a day and a half earlier than in 2020, when this symbolic date already arrived a day earlier than in 2019.

  • A finding that suggests that the government policy put in place on the subject does not seem to work.

This year (again) women start working "for free" from November.

Precisely since 9:22 am this Wednesday.

A symbolic date and time calculated by the feminist collective Les Glorieuses from European statistics from Eurostat on the pay gap between women and men in France.

A calculation carried out every year since 2015 and whose results are final: the date falls a little earlier every year, despite the recent measures put in place by the government.

How to explain it? 

20 Minutes

takes stock.

What findings does the report make for 2021?

According to the report published by Les Glorieuses on Tuesday, the wage difference between women and men in France has reached 16.5% this year.

“We see that this figure is swelling compared to the first report we made in 2016, when the difference was around 15%,” recalls Rebecca Amsellem, economist and editor of the Glorieuses Newsletter.

However, the expert does not note only the negative.

“We still feel a craze and a will on the part of the French and politicians to reduce this inequality.

It is a subject on which we do not need to convince people.

"

What measures have been put in place by the government to fight against inequalities?

The first law on equal pay dates back to 1972. It lays down the principle "for work of equal value, equal pay" by forcing employers, in both the private and public sectors, to equal pay for women and men. Despite this, the gaps remain and the government has undertaken in recent years a series of measures to try to reduce them.

In September 2018, the law for the freedom to choose one's professional future was promulgated. It creates the Gender Equality Index calculated on the basis of salaries, increases, promotions, maternity leave, top management parity. Since March 2020, it has been extended to companies with at least 50 employees who must make it public and forward it to the labor inspectorate. In the event of poor results not corrected within three years, they are exposed to financial penalties.

On March 9, 2020, on the occasion of Women's Rights Day, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance presented its 3rd ministerial plan for Professional Equality Women-Men 2020-2022.

This should in particular make it possible to fight “against stereotypes to promote diversity in professions”, but above all to promote “equal pay and effective equality in professional careers”.

How is it that despite everything, the symbolic date arrives earlier each year?

If in 2021 women started working for free at 9.22 a.m. on Wednesday November 3, in 2020 it was at 4:16 p.m. on November 4, a day later, but also a day earlier than in 2019 when this symbolic day had fallen. at 4:46 p.m. on November 5. Regarding dates, Rebecca Amsellem points out that the variation in the number of working days in the year can have an impact. On the other hand, there is a figure which remains very comparable, it is the percentage of the pay gap between women and men. It was 15.5% in 2020 and 15.4% in 2019, compared to 16.5% this year.

If this increase is difficult to explain for Rebecca Amsellem, the economist stresses that the repercussions of the measures taken by the government cannot yet be observed.

“Quite simply because the figures put forward by Eurostat were published in March of this year, but are based on analyzes from last year which are based on figures from 2019. However, at that time, it was only one year since, for example, the Index had been set up.

"For the expert, we must therefore wait until next year," or even the following year ", to judge whether the government's policy has a real impact.

But if Les Glorieuses considers these actions as "a good start", the feminist collective nevertheless thinks that they are "not enough" ...

How to finally reverse the trend?

In their report, the Les Glorieuses collective proposes to put in place three measures to force companies to respect equal pay between women and men. "We looked at the public policies of countries where wage inequalities were the lowest and we chose those which were easiest to transpose to us," explains Rebecca Amsellem.

The first is to apply, as in Iceland, the principle of equal conditionality.

That is to say to condition the access of companies "to public markets, the obtaining of public subsidies and that of loans guaranteed by the State", to respect for equal pay within their structures.

The collective proposes, as in Norway, to "revalue the wages of jobs where women are the most numerous", as within the nursing or teaching staff for example.

Finally, the group wants the French to be able to enjoy maternity leave and paternity leave of the same duration, as is the case in Sweden, so that maternity leave is no longer penalizing for women.

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