Spain’s gender pay gap in hourly earnings was substantially wider for part-time employees than for full-time staff in 2023, according to figures published by the National Statistics Institute, INE.
The data also show that women were more concentrated in lower salary brackets. In 2023, more than a quarter of female employees earned at or below Spain’s annual minimum wage, compared with just over one in 10 male employees.
Spain’s gender pay gap is larger in part-time work
The INE defines the unadjusted gender pay gap as the difference between men’s and women’s gross hourly earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s gross hourly earnings. It does not adjust for individual characteristics that may explain part of the difference.
For full-time work, women’s gross hourly pay was €18.50, compared with €18.90 for men. Women’s hourly earnings therefore represented 97.7% of men’s.
For part-time employees, women’s average gross hourly earnings were 14% lower than men’s, compared with a 1.1% difference between women and men in full-time work.
More women earned at or below the minimum wage
Spain’s Salario Mínimo Interprofesional (SMI), the statutory minimum wage, was €15,120 a year in 2023.
- The INE recorded that 25.8% of women had annual earnings at or below that level, compared with 11.6% of men.
- At the other end of the distribution, 3.1% of men earned at least five times the annual SMI, compared with 1.9% of women.
Women were more concentrated in lower salary deciles
The INE’s 2024 monthly salary-decile data also showed a higher concentration of women in lower-paid groups.
A salary decile divides employees into 10 equally sized groups based on gross monthly earnings. The first decile includes the 10% of employees with the lowest salaries.
In 2024, 49.8% of female employees were in deciles below the fifth decile, compared with 30.8% of male employees.
In the upper salary deciles, eight to 10, women accounted for 26.1% of female employees, compared with 33.7% of male employees.
Annual salaries show a difference between women and men
Women’s average gross annual salary was €25,591.30 in 2023. This was 84.3% of the €30,372.50 average for men.
The median annual salary, which divides employees into two equal groups above and below the figure, was €21,178 for women and €25,088 for men. Women’s median salary represented 84.4% of men’s.
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