Women earned on average 16.4 percent less than men in the European Union in 2013, with the gap even greater in many northern countries, the EU statistics agency Eurostat said Thursday.
At 29.9 percent, the biggest salary gap was in Estonia, followed by Austria at 23 percent, the Czech Republic at 22.1 percent and Germany at 21.6 percent.
Britain stood at 19.7 percent, France at 15.2 percent and Ireland at 14.4 percent.
At 3.2 percent, the gap was narrowest in Slovenia, followed by Malta at 5.1 percent, Poland at 6.4 percent, Italy at 7.3 percent and Croatia at 7.4 percent.
The salary gap between women and men narrowed from 2008 to 2013 in most of the 28 EU countries, with the biggest decline in Lithuania, from 21.6 percent to 13.3 percent.
Poland, the Czech Republic and Malta also registered big declines.
However, the gap increased slightly in nine of the member states, led by Portugal, which rose from 9.2 percent to 13 percent.
Overall, the gap narrowed from 17.3 percent in 2008 to 16.4 percent in 2013.
Eurostat, which published the figures ahead of International Women's Day on Sunday, said the gap between women and men is not just in pay.
Two thirds of the directors, executives and managers are men, while two thirds of office workers are women.
Source: AFP