Insee Focus · March 2025 · n° 349

Gender pay gap in 2023 Between 1995 and 2023, the wage income gap narrowed by a third

In 2023, women's average wage income was 22.2% lower than men’s in the private sector. This pay gap reflected differences in the annual volume of work, as women were less often employed during the year and more often worked part-time. However, for the same amount of work, women's average salary was 14.2% lower than men's. Since 1995, wage income inequalities have fallen by a third. Differences in the volume of work on the one hand and in full-time equivalent wages on the other hand contributed to this fall, which has intensified since 2019.

The differences in pay could also be explained by the gender distribution of professions: women did not occupy the same types of jobs and did not work in the same sectors as men, and had less access to the highest paying jobs. In 2023, women accounted for 42% of full-time equivalent positions in the private sector, but only 24% of the top 1% in high-paying jobs. For the same job in the same establishment, the full-time equivalent wage gap was reduced to 3.8%.

The wage income gap between women and men employees was even more pronounced between parents: mothers worked significantly fewer hours than fathers, but also had lower full-time equivalent wages, and the gap increased along with the number of children.