“When it comes to women’s issues, one always feels like chewing the cud,” wrote the famous women’s rights activist Hedwig Dohm at the end of the 19th century. Even then, she called for economic equality for women, and even today, study after study proves what everyone knows: women earn less than men. Of the Gender pay gap is a well-known and unsolved problem. Women earn in Germany per hour an average of 18 percent less as men.
This problem has an impact on young women’s life plans very early on – before they even earn any real money. This is now shown by a joint study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) and the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Research (DZHW). Süddeutsche Zeitung available in advance. According to the study, women expect a lower salary than men shortly after graduation. Young women expect that by the age of 35 they will be paid around 16 percent less than men in a full-time job with a university degree. Young women with vocational training also expect 13 percent less wages. Pupils from various Berlin schools took part in the survey shortly after graduating from high school in 2014. In the long-term study, other surveys were also carried out, the analysis of which is still pending.
Despite their already rather cautious expectations, women overestimate their specific salary prospects. They anticipate the later wage gap and even then are disappointed by the reality. An example: High school graduates expected a net income of 2529 euros after completing a bachelor’s degree. In fact, women of the relevant age with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of only 2070 euros at the time of the survey. Men earned 2739 euros and expected 3104 euros. Both sexes miscalculate – but women more than men.
Young women expect to earn less because of family responsibilities
According to the authors of the study, the high school graduates expect to lose income due to family commitments. “This means that women who want enough time for the family alongside their job have significantly lower income expectations,” says Andreas Leibing from the Department of Education and Family at the DIW. “In contrast, men expect not to have to make any compromises when it comes to reconciling family and work.” One reason could be that men and women have different ideas about what “enough time for the family” means.
The study warns that these negative expectations could lead to women deciding early on not to study or negotiating lower starting salaries. It is also possible that women reject certain careers from the outset. The study even speaks of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.
Does that mean that women are to some extent to blame for the worse bank balance because they are negotiating a low starting salary or are leaving the job for the family? Andreas Leibing definitely does not want the study results to be understood in this way. “Women aren’t to blame for the gender pay gap. But social norms and roles could definitely be relevant. If your own mother earns little or mostly stays at home, this can affect the daughters’ income expectations,” he says. However, the focus should not be solely on women. Men are also responsible for taking on more family work.
The authors of the study therefore recommend further improving the compatibility of family and paid work and creating incentives for a more equal division of family work between men and women, such as expanding child day care.