Gender pay equality: Silae unveils the results of the first edition of its Social Barometer, in partnership with Ouest France

Based on the analysis of nearly 7 million payslips issued monthly for more than one million companies, mainly micro-enterprises and SMEs, Silae intends to contribute to a better understanding of the economic and social realities that underlie the labor market.

For this first edition, Silae is partnering with Ouest-France, the world's leading French-language daily newspaper and one of the top news websites, to provide an unprecedented overview of gender pay equality in France.

According to Pierre Cesarini, CEO of Silae: “Silae processes millions of payslips every month, right at the heart of local communities, working closely with French micro-enterprises, SMEs, and mid-sized companies. This unique territorial network, combined with the depth of data processed by our solutions and the strength of our network of partners – accountants and integrators – puts us in a privileged position to take the economic and social pulse of the world of work. With the support of Ouest-France for this first edition, we intend to use this wealth of information to contribute to public debate and objectively inform decision-making.”

According to Céline Bardy, Editor-in-Chief of Ouest-France: "The amount of data processed by Silae is a formidable resource. Thanks to its processing, Ouest-France journalists can identify well-supported trends in salaries and share them with their readers."

Main lessons

A wage gap that reveals structural inequalities

The average gender pay gap is 8,47% gross, or €179 net per month. However, the most significant finding is the gap between the average (8,47%) and the median (2,94%), revealing that men overwhelmingly hold the highest-paying positions. They represent 62% of the top quartile of earners (salaries above €3.750 gross), compared to only 38% of women.

Four cumulative mechanisms identified

1. The life cycle effect. The gap widens dramatically with age: from 2,57% for those under 25, it reaches 14,90% for those 50 and over, representing a multiplier of 5,8 over the course of a career. This decline reflects, in particular, the cumulative impact of discrimination, career breaks related to maternity, widespread use of involuntary part-time work, and a glass ceiling that limits women's professional advancement.

2. The glass ceiling. Women represent only 26,29% of senior managers, while they make up 44% of the total workforce. Among managers, the 13,37% pay gap represents more than €670 gross per month. Furthermore, we note that women are slightly more likely than men to reach management positions (promotion rate of 0,81% vs. 0,64%), but this does not translate to top management positions.

3. Involuntary Part-Time Work. We observe that 35,18% of women work part-time compared to only 15,60% of men. Women thus represent 64,48% of part-time employees while constituting only 44% of the total workforce. This overrepresentation reflects, in particular, adjustments related to family constraints and thus contributes to the wage gap observed with age.

4. Contractual insecurity. Women are overrepresented in precarious contracts, accounting for 11,55% of the total, compared to only 9,45% for men. This is particularly true at the beginning of their careers – nearly 30% of women under 25 are on precarious contracts, compared to 22,8% of men. This structural disadvantage at the start of their professional lives fuels the disparities that will subsequently accumulate.

These findings raise serious questions.

The barometer also highlights other disparities and paradoxes:

• Large companies (250 employees and more) show a gap of 18,22%, almost six times that of very small businesses (3,22%), despite the strengthened legal obligations.
• The near-perfect equality of the rates of increase is misleading, because when applied to an already unequal salary base, these percentages mechanically perpetuate the differences in value.
• The financial and insurance sector shows the largest gap, with an average of 45,96%. Conversely, four sectors show a gap in favor of women, including water and waste management and transportation and warehousing.
• The wage gap varies considerably across the territories: from 0,51% in favor of women in Lozère to 38,16% in favor of men in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, revealing a multi-speed wage system in France.
• The barometer finally reveals a major Paris/provinces divide: a Parisian woman earns on average 1.234 euros net more per month than a woman in Ardèche.
• The overrepresentation of female workers in precarious contracts is striking, with a precariousness rate of 18,75%, compared to 11,55% for women in all professions combined.

Full results can be found on the ouest-france.fr website. this link.

Methodology

The Silae Social Barometer is based on a statistically rigorous analysis protocol. The study examines 6.727.809 payslips (3.762.720 men, 2,965,089 women) collected between December 2024 and December 2025 from over one million companies. Salaries were recalculated to full-time equivalents to ensure data comparability. The entire system was anonymized and aggregated through multiple cross-referencing, in full compliance with the GDPR.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.