Gender pay gap in Slovakia almost 20%

Young Slovak women are more educated than they used to be in the past and they have better opportunities to take care of themselves as well, according to a study published by the Allianz Group based on information provided by the Statistics Office of the European Commission (Eurostat). As many as 73.7 percent of women aged 20-24 have high school or university education. Even though women live independent lives, in comparison to past generations, they still have lower incomes. The gap between salaries of men and women is wider in Slovakia than the EU average, head of the European Commission Representation in Slovakia Dušan Chrenek has noted. According to Chrenek, the difference in Slovakia is 19.8 percent, with women's employment in Slovakia being also considerably lower than among men. "While women in Europe in 2014 had to work two months more to make the same amount of money as men, Slovak women had to spend even more time at work for obtaining the same reward as men," Chrenek said. The European Union supports several projects in Slovakia aimed at boosting women's employment and at eliminating inequality in remuneration.