Equal Pay Day 2024: Survey on the topic of wages among employees in German-speaking Switzerland
Gender pay gaps are still a reality in Switzerland. Equal Pay Day on February 17 is intended to draw attention to this situation. The jobs network Xing conducted a survey of employees in German-speaking Switzerland on the subject of pay and found out that pay is at least as important to women as it is to men: Pay is at least as important to women as it is to men. However, although they feel their pay is too low more often than men, they are less likely to ask for a pay rise if their salary is below market value.
February 17 is Equal Pay Day in Switzerland. The day of action is intended to symbolically highlight the pay gap between women and men. Up until this date, women in Switzerland have worked for free in arithmetical terms if men are paid from January 1.
The jobs network Xing surveyed 500 employees in the German-speaking part of Switzerland on the subject of pay, among other things, and found the following gender-specific differences:
Women often find their pay too low
A higher salary is the most important criterion for both women and men when choosing a new employer. At 62 percent, this point tends to be even more important to women than men (55 percent). At the same time, 46% of women feel that their salary is too low in relation to their work performance. The figure for men is 37 percent.
Of the women who feel their salary is too low, 60 percent would be prepared to change their employer for this reason. The proportion of men is roughly the same.
Different reasons for wage demands
There are also differences between the sexes when it comes to the reasons why employees ask for a pay rise. 26 percent of men base their request on the fact that their current salary is below market value. Among women, only 16 percent use a salary below market value as a reason for salary negotiations. 9 percent of the women surveyed state that they ask for a salary increase every year. Among men, the proportion tends to be slightly higher at 13 percent.
"Women don't earn less because their salary is less important to them. And they would change jobs just as often as men because their salary is too low," says Sandra Bascha, Xing Communications Manager for Switzerland. "But female employees find it more difficult than men to link the demand for more pay to their own market value. And this is despite the fact that they feel more often than men that their performance is not sufficiently compensated."
Source: www.xing.com
