Construction sector in Spain is only industry where women earn more than men

Transport and warehousing, where women's average pay is just 1% lower than men's, almost achieves parity, but what of the sectors where more women are employed?

Lucía Palacios

Madrid

Monday, 10 March 2025, 20:38

Across Spain there is only one sector of economic activity where there is no gender pay gap. To be more accurate, there is only one sector where the pay gap goes against male workers. Curiously enough, this pay gap exists in the construction sector, a trade that is pretty much male-dominated. So, while women only represent less than 12% of the workforce in this profession, they happen to earn on average 15% more than their male counterparts, according to the latest study 'The gender pay gap in Spain: What factors contribute to its persistence?' carried out by Esade - a private, academic institution in Spain with close ties to business, industry and commerce. This is due to the fact that it is mainly that the women employed in this area are typically the most qualified and those jobs requiring less training or qualifications - say, bricklayer or labourer - are mostly occupied by men.

Another activity in which few women feature, but those that do are paid nearly as equally as their male coworkers, is transport and warehousing. A woman's average salary in this sector is barely 1% lower than the men's. We say barely because the disparity in pay in other sectors is much greater. For instance, the health and social services sector has a gender pay gap of 21%. The same goes for professional and scientific activities. Both sectors are highly feminised, so more women are paid less than their male colleagues here.

The report from Esade notes that occupational segregation explains a significant part of the pay gap, but almost half remains unexplained after taking into account individual and employer characteristics. The same is true for the financial sector: about 42% of the current 17% pay gap is due to the concentration of women being in the lowest paid jobs, while little else can be explained by company or personal characteristics.

The good news is that the hourly pay gap has almost halved in 12 years from 15% in 2010 to 9% in 2022.

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