Social regulation of the gender pay gap in the EU

Abstract

There has been more than 30 years of equal pay legislation in the European Union yet the gap between male and female earnings has remained remarkably resilient and is present across all Member States, regardless of national institutional arrangements. The European regulatory landscape has changed to one relying heavily on soft law approaches and with more limited ambitions in the field of gender equality than at the creation of the European Employment Strategy in 1997. In this environment the European Commission has placed greater emphasis on the role of social partners in addressing the gender pay gap. This article critically reviews the role of social partners in addressing these pay inequalities.