The gender pay gap is a well-observed phenomenon across Europe. In the EU, women earned 12% less than men in 2023, according to Eurostat, meaning women earned only €88 for every €100 earned by men.
The gap is even wider when it comes to pensions. Across 27 European countries, including non-EU members, women receive significantly lower pensions than men. On average, women’s pension income is 22% lower than that of men. In some significant economies, the gap exceeds 35% — according to the OECD.
In 2024, the gender pension gap ranged from around 6% in Estonia to 37% in the UK. The OECD average stands at 23%, and the European average for the 27 countries in the list is 22%. This means that, on average across Europe, women receive just €78 in pension income, whereas men receive €100.
The gender pension gap is above 30% in several countries. Besides the UK, these included the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, and Ireland.
The lowest gaps are found in Estonia, Iceland, Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia, and Denmark, all at 10% or below.
“Motherhood pension gap”
“The gender pension gap is, in many ways, a motherhood pension gap, as it begins to open up when women start a family,” Professor Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi from the University of Mannheim told Euronews Business.
She noted that many women reduce their working hours to care for children, which is typically associated with a part-time wage penalty.
“Motherhood and reduced working hours push down both current income and later pension entitlements. They also lead to lower lifetime wages and shorter careers, leaving women with less disposable income to invest in private pensions,” she added.
Niessen-Ruenzi emphasised that cross-country differences reflect variations in gender-stereotypical patterns of care work and household responsibilities. Conservative welfare states such as Germany combine high female part-time rates, long career interruptions, and joint household taxation, all of which magnify this gap.
By contrast, Nordic and some Central and Eastern European countries tend to exhibit much smaller gender pension gaps. In these places, women’s full-time employment histories tend to more closely resemble those of men, childcare is widely available, and pension systems include more redistributive elements or credits for care years.
Gaps remain significant, but gradual progress
The average gender pension gap across European countries has declined from 28% in 2007 to 22% in 2024. The most significant decreases took place in Slovenia, Germany, and Greece, where the gap narrowed by more than 15 percentage points (pp) over these 17 years.
The decline is also more than 10 pp in Norway, Portugal, Turkey, and Luxembourg.
“Strongly declining labour market differences between men and women are driving this reduction in the GPG [in many countries], but it takes time for these changes to be fully reflected in lower pension inequalities,” noted the OECD’s Pensions at a Glance 2025 report.
Among the 27 countries, the gender pension gap increased by 2 pp in only three: Austria, Estonia and Belgium. In all other countries, the gap declined, although the change was very small in some cases.
Result of long-term inequalities
“These differences stem from long-term inequalities that accumulate across women’s working lives, reflecting how labour markets, family policies, and pension system design interact,” Professor Antonio Abatemarco from University of Salerno told Euronews Business. “The gap is therefore not a single phenomenon, but the result of three interrelated structural drivers.”
Firstly, Abatemarco explained that in many European countries — particularly in Southern and Eastern Europe — women’s labour market participation historically lagged behind men’s and often occurred in informal sectors where no pension contributions were paid. Activities such as household services remain largely informal and predominantly female, meaning that years of work may not translate into pension entitlements.
Secondly, he underlined the impact of care responsibilities.In Western European countries, the main issue is no longer entry into the labour market but interruptions caused by maternity and care responsibilities, he argued. In countries such as Germany or Austria, women returning from maternity leave often move into part-time work, resulting in fewer contributions and slower wage progression.
Finally, Abatemarco pointed to women losing out because of recent pension system reforms. For example, according to OECD’s Pensions at a Glance 2025 report, Slovenia increased the retirement age for women more than for men since 1999, thereby reducing gender differences.
Public versus employer pensions
Inés Guillemyn, PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp, underlined the relative importance of public versus employer pensions in total retirement income. In countries with strong multi-pillar pension systems, such as the Netherlands, a larger share of pension income is directly tied to past employment and wages. Because access and contributions to employer pension plans is highly gendered, and these private schemes often lack solidarity mechanisms, private pensions tend to widen gender disparities.
