German Men Earn 22 Percent Higher Pay Than Women

Brussels, Belgium (AHN) - A newly released European Union study showed German women workers earned 22 percent less than their male counterparts.

The disparity was one of the highest throughout the 27-member bloc. EU's Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Vladimir Spidla explained the wide gap to the large number of German women who could not engage in full-time employment due to child-rearing tasks.

Aside from German women, only female workers from Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia ranked lower than the Deutsche frau in terms of wage disparity. The average gender salary gap across the EU was 15 percent.

The number of working females has risen across EU by 7.5 million women workers from 2000 to 2007. For the same period only 4.5 million men joined EU's labor force. But one-third of the working women were employed only part-time, while among male workers only 8 percent were part-timers.

To close the gap, Spidla called on European employers to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work among EU workers.