Pay transparency: major challenges for better recognition of women's work

The clock is ticking: European Union member states must comply with this directive "by June 7, 2026 at the latest." For France, Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou recently indicated that a bill would be presented to Parliament "before the summer."

Once the directive is transposed into national law, job applicants will be required to receive information on starting salary, or at least the salary range, and current employees will have access to gender-disaggregated information on average pay levels for individuals performing the same or equivalent work. Companies will be required to justify or address pay gaps exceeding 5%.

A few months before these changes, "internally, we had zero information on the subject," notes Elise (name changed), a manager in a large energy group in the Paris region.

"As a woman, we tend not to discuss how much we earn, whereas men discuss it a little more, with their colleagues or friends," says this woman in her forties, who is waiting with interest to discover if there are gaps between men and women in her company and, if so, "that they close them."

In France, a law established the principle of equal pay for "work of equal value" as early as 1972, but the gender pay gap persists. For the same working hours, women earned 14,2% less than men in 2023, a gap that still stands at 3,8% for comparable positions, according to INSEE (the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies).

With the transposition of the directive, transparency will be imposed on the private sector as well as the public service.

"Social compromise"

The precise terms of the French transposition, in particular the level of sanctions against companies that do not respect the principles of equal pay, remain unknown, but for Béatrice Lestic, national secretary of the CFDT, transparency constitutes "a real lever" for change.

She emphasizes that it is "likely to change the game, because (employers) have no interest in finding themselves in conflict with their employees who will demand accountability from them."

Especially since the transposition in April 2025 of another European directive facilitates class actions, emphasizes sociologist Jean-François Amadieu.

Ms. Lestic hopes that the transposition will provide an opportunity to introduce the concepts of working conditions and effort into the job classification system, which are currently "invisible." The directive stipulates that these criteria must be taken into account when comparing the value of the work of two employees.

Work on classification could allow for better consideration of the responsibilities and arduousness specific to highly feminized professions.

"It's complicated to go back on this kind of social compromise where everyone agrees that working in early childhood education is less valuable than working in IT services," points out economist Séverine Lemière.

Ms. Lemière and Marie Becker, a legal expert specializing in gender equality, warn against a "watered-down transposition" that would not compel employers to improve job classifications due to pressure from employers' organizations. They also emphasize a "huge need for training" for managers on the concept of work of equal value.

A report by three female MPs on equal pay, published on Tuesday, also recommends, among other things, "creating an obligation to revise classifications at the level of professional sectors, based on objective, non-sexist criteria".

On the other hand, the National Association of Human Resources Directors (ANDRH) fears over-implementation.

"Often, France tries to put in more rules, which generates more administrative work. We don't want to create an additional burden for management teams," emphasizes its president, Audrey Richard, while judging the directive's approach to be "rather positive."