Women still earned less than men last year, but pay gap is getting smaller

On average, women in the Netherlands still earn fewer than men per hour, but the difference has again become smaller, partly due to the increasing level of education of women and increased minimum wages. In 2024, the average gross hourly wage of women was 10.5 percent lower than that of men. In 2010 this was still 19 percent. Last year, for example, men earned an average of 30.32 euros per hour and women 27.15 euros per hour. This is according to new figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

The pay gap is the uncorrected average difference in the average gross -earned hourly wage between men and women. This looks at the total wage difference, without taking into account differences in job -related characteristics such as age, level of education, whether someone works full -time or part -time, experience and the management or not.

On the basis of these calculations, the average hourly wages of men have risen by 38 percent compared to 2010. At the same time, the average hourly wage of women has increased by 52 percent. This means that the difference in wages between men and women has decreased in fourteen years.

In the 40 to 45 age group, the wage difference has decreased the most in recent years, from 19 percent in 2010 to 7 percent in 2024. For young employees, the difference in hourly wage is nil. On average, women between the ages of 25 and 30 even earn slightly more than men from this age category.

Education level and minimum wage

The fact that the difference in wages is becoming increasingly smaller is largely due to the ever -increasing level of education of women, says Statistics Netherlands. For example, the statistics agency announces that 35.9 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 75 in 2022 are highly educated, compared to 27.4 percent in 2013. Among men in this age category, 35.2 percent in 2022 and 29.2 percent in 2013 is highly educated.

Another reason that Statistics Netherlands gives for the decreased difference between men and women is that « the minimum wages have been considerably increased: from 2022 to 2024 by 21 percent ». Because a minimum wage per month to a minimum wage per hour was switched in 2024, employees with low -wages in particular up to 11 percent extra, says Statistics Netherlands. CBS: « Because women are over -represented at the bottom of the salary scale, they have benefited more from this than men. »

Sectors and large companies

In fourteen years, the wage difference in education declined the most: from 16 percent in 2010 to only 1 percent last year. And in public administration, men earn an average of 1 eurocent per hour more than women.

Yet there is still work to be done when it comes to the wage differences at the three thousand largest companies in the Netherlands that ministers a hundred men and women. Last year no less than 85 percent of men earned more than women. But, says the CBS, since 2010 « has tripled the number of large companies in which women earn more than men ».

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