The Council of Ministers has approved the institutional declaration on the occasion of Equal Pay Day, a date set on February 22 since 2010, at the proposal of the Ministries of Equality, Labor and Social Economy and Youth and Children.

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Equal pay

Equal pay for men and women
The Government of Spain expresses its firm determination in the fight against pay inequality, committing itself to continue making progress in the effective application of current legislation and in the adoption or development of the measures of equality, human rights, social justice and democratic participation that are necessary to reverse the causes of gender gaps and pay inequality between women and men.

What is equal pay or pay equity?
Equal pay, also known as pay equity, equal pay or the pay gap, holds that those who perform similar or equally productive work should receive equal pay, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or other categories.

What is the pay gap?
The European Commission defines the gender pay gap as the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of male wage earners and female wage earners as a percentage of male gross earnings.

What are the effects of the pay gap throughout a working life?
The wage gap means that women earn less income throughout their lives, which also translates into lower pensions and a greater risk of poverty among the elderly. The elimination of the pay gap would allow progress to be made towards real and effective equality in society, as referred to in Article 9.2 of the Spanish Constitution.

How much has the wage gap been reduced in Spain?
According to wage data from the Encuesta de Población Activa (EPA), in 2022, the gross monthly wage gap between men and women was 15.7%, 5.25 percentage points below the gap in 2018, representing a reduction of 25%. It continues to be an unacceptable figure, reflecting the inequality and employment discrimination suffered by women, but it is the lowest value in the historical series.

During this period, the wage gap for women between 20 and 24 years of age has also narrowed by 4.3 percentage points, and that of women between 25 and 29 years of age has narrowed by 2.2 percentage points. However, there is no reason to lower our guard and it is necessary to advance in policies that allow the definitive eradication of the gap among the youngest people.

Progress towards labour equality in Spain
In the last five years, there have been significant advances in the labour market situation of women.

According to the latest EPA data, the highest number of employed women in the historical series has been reached, reaching 9,923,400, 82% of whom have a permanent employment relationship thanks to the effects of the labour reform.

What labour measures help to combat the wage gap between men and women?
The increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) or the reduction of the working day will help to combat the gender wage gap.

The Government is going to continue developing and promoting measures that allow progress in eliminating these gaps, such as the recent Royal Decree setting the Minimum Interprofessional Wage for 2024, which raises it to 1,134 euros per month, thus consolidating a 54% increase from 2018.
The measure has a particularly positive impact on women, as they are overrepresented in jobs with salaries equal to or lower than the minimum interprofessional wage. This has reduced the wage gap between men and women by 25% in the last 5 years.

The proposal to reduce working hours without reducing wages will, among other things, improve the balanced distribution of care tasks and provide more time for women to spend on their own.

Artificial intelligence and the digital gender gap in Spain
Technological development poses several opportunities for the future, but it is not without challenges in the workplace, including the pay dimension.

Achieving greater participation and leadership of women in the development linked to AI, Big Data and Machine Learning.

Mitigating gender biases achieving greater transparency in algorithms and integrating of the gender perspective in programming, code creation and algorithms, are challenges to be addressed, not only to prevent gender gaps from perpetuating or even widening but to reverse existing gaps, create innovative solutions to combat the causes of structural inequalities between women and men in the workplace.

Implement the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (ENIA), which includes gender equality as one of its cross-cutting objectives and expressly addresses the challenge of “Reducing the AI gender gap in employment and leadership”.