Pay gap narrowed for EU women during financial crisis
The gender pay gap in the European Union narrowed during the financial crisis, possibly because the jobs of many women are more protected than those of men.
Data released by the EU's statistic agency Eurostat ahead of International Women's Day on Sunday also showed the pay gap between men and women tended to be wider in Europe's richest economies, although not definitively so.
Overall, women in the EU were paid 16.4 percent less than men in 2013, a smaller gap than the 17.3 percent in 2008 when the financial crisis hit.
The data is unadjusted, so looks only at totals rather than, say, equal pay for equal work. Eurostat gave no explanation for the improvement, saying only that the gender pay gap "is linked to a number of legal, social and economic factors which go far beyond the single issue of equal pay for equal work".
