At 4:48 p.m., Friday, November 8, 2024, women will begin “working for free.” The message is strong. And allows us to understand very explicitly the path that remains to be taken to achieve equality.
This is the eighth consecutive year that the newsletter The Glorious (produced by Gloria Media) highlights this reality through a hashtag or hashtag (this time, #8NOVEMBER4:48 p.m.). A powerful symbol that aims to raise collective awareness, and a call to action addressed to politicians and businesses. This year, the operation is also coupled with a report highlighting initiatives implemented in other countries.
What does the chosen indicator mean?
What is behind this very precise date and time? To obtain it, you must already decide which indicator to use, among those produced each year by INSEE.
The Glorious are based on the gross salary gap in full-time equivalent (EQTP), data which allows European comparisons. Due to the deadline for calculating the indicators, the figure used this year corresponds to the salary differences in 2022. Women in France then earned 13.9% less than men in EQTP, public and private sectors combined (for companies more than 10 employees). This notion of full-time equivalent, at first sight a little obscure, makes it possible to compare the salary for identical working hours, by calculating the remuneration that employees would have received if they had worked full-time all year.
Read also: Gender inequalities start in the playground
What is the calculation?
Then, it’s time for the math exercise. To get the date and time for November 8 at 4:48 p.m., The Glorious started from the salary gap of 13.9%, and related it to the number of working days in France (252 in 2024). 13.9% of 252 corresponds to 35.028 working days. We must therefore subtract 35.028 working days from 2024. We thus arrive at Friday November 8 at 4:48 p.m. and 15 seconds.
Why are other figures circulating?
To observe salary inequalities, several reliable indicators coexist. Everyone has their own interest, one is not better than the other. But none cover exactly the same reality.
The gap in actual perceived salary compensation is actually much higher than 13.9%. Because women are almost three times more likely to work part-time (whether voluntarily or by choice), and are less often employed during the year. Thus, they receive 23% less in their bank account than men.
Read also: Salaries: the gaps between men and women have narrowed in 2023… thanks to inflation
Another figure to remember: at a comparable position, an unexplained gap of 4% remains. As INSEE warned, in October 2024, at the time of the publication of 2023 data, “this residual gap cannot be interpreted as a measure of the extent of salary discrimination between women and men, due to differences in characteristics not observable in administrative sources on salaries”. Differences in experience and seniority in the company, or even diploma, do not appear, for example.
What are the causes?
Although they are not measured by INSEE figures, sexist bias cannot be brushed aside out of hand. But whether it is a question of discrimination or not, we clearly see in all cases that, as the Institute pointed out, “the wage gap between women and men mainly reflects the effect of professional segregation and the inequalities that accompany it”.
Women and men do not work in the same sectors. Those who are very feminized are often less well valued financially and more precarious. The two do not have the same responsibilities either.
“Women will increasingly resort to part-time work to care for their loved ones – free and invisible workrecall Les Glorieuses. And part-time jobs are less valued at hourly rates”. Moreover, as the work of the Nobel Prize winner in economics Claudia Goldin has shown on the notion of “greedy work”, employers tend to reward during promotions and raises, the employees they see the most at work. Whether they are effective or not in the allotted time…
