In 2017, the general pay gap between women and men, that is, the unadjusted gender pay gap, remained unchanged compared with the previous year. To coincide with the Equal Pay Day on 18 March, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports on the basis of updated results that the average gross hourly earnings of women (16.59 euros) were 21% lower than those of men (21.00 euros).

In 2016, the gender pay gap, which measures the percentage difference in average gross hourly earnings between men and women, amounted to 21% in Germany. As in previous years, this was considerably higher than the European Union average (16%). Among the 28 EU countries, only Estonia (25%), the Czech Republic (22%) and United Kingdom (21%) had a similarly high or higher gender pay gap. The gender pay gap is expressed as a percentage of the average male earnings.

The earnings gap between low-paid and high-paid workers remained nearly constant between 2010 and 2014. The long-term trend of increasing wage differentiation has stopped.

In 2017, the average gross earnings of a full-time employee amounted to Euro 3,771 per month. Extra payments like holiday, Christmas or special bonuses are not included in this amount. The level of earnings depends not only on an employee’s individual characteristics, such as the level of educational attainment, area of work and age, but also on the branch of economic activity in which the employee is employed.

Looking at the highest level of classification, the branch with the highest earnings

Chief pilots had the highest gross monthly earnings by occupation in 2014 (median of 13,198 euros). Chief medical practitioners for human medicine and dentistry ranked second (10,115 euros). Occupations with the highest gross monthly earnings also included legal executives (8,768 euros), chief aeronautical engineers (8,355 euros), chief developers (7,897 euros) and surgeons (7,810 euros).