Reducing the Gender Pay Gap Panel

The distinguished panel of legal experts Laura Carlson, Katharina Mader, Paula Tavares, and Alix Frank-Thomasser examined the critical issues of economic gender disparity, the gender pay gap, and the necessity of access to justice.

The current trajectory is unacceptable. We need to increase polticial pressure to effect immediate change.

Taking the history of the fight for gender equality and global statistics into account, the panelists highlighted that the gender pay gap remains a persistent worldwide problem. Indeed, despite positive trends in the last decade, the Covid-19 pandemic widened the gap from 115 to 135 years on a global scale. Furthermore, statistics that are disaggregated by different groups (e.g., race or age) show even more significant disparities concerning pay. The panelists emphasized that statistics can be deceiving and encouraged the audience to look beyond aggregate data at the disparities between different groups. They further highlighted the importance of access to justice to ensure that women can effectively claim and enforce their rights.

Transparency is the key!

To combat economic gender disparity and the gender pay gap, the panelists recommended increasing transparency concerning wages, offering broad access to information, providing access to justice, and raising consciousness and awareness of the gender pay gap and the issue of gender disparity.