On 18 September 2026 the United Nations marked an international day devoted to equal pay for work of equal value. The observance fell in the first year of application of the European rules on pay transparency, transposed in Italy by a legislative decree in force since 7 June 2026.
International Equal Pay Day
International Equal Pay Day falls every year on 18 September and recalls the principle of equal pay for work of equal value set out in the Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), one of the Organization’s fundamental conventions. The United Nations page devoted to the observance estimates the gender pay gap at around 20 per cent globally and notes that progress in narrowing it has been slow.
The same page sets out some orders of magnitude: women employees globally earn about 78 cents for every dollar earned by men; fewer than half of working age women were employed in 2024, compared with 70 per cent of men; women spend more than 2.5 times as many hours as men on unpaid care work. In the health and care sector women earn on average 24 per cent less than their male peers.
The observance is promoted by the United Nations together with UN Women and the ILO. Operational coordination runs through the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC), led by the ILO, UN Women and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), described by the United Nations as the only multi stakeholder partnership working to reduce the gender pay gap at global, regional and national levels.
The pay gap in European figures
According to Eurostat, with data extracted in February 2026 and referring to 2024, the unadjusted gender pay gap stands at 11.1 per cent in the European Union and 11.4 per cent in the euro area. The indicator measures the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of male and female employees, expressed as a percentage of the average gross hourly earnings of male employees, and is calculated for enterprises with ten or more employees.
Across Member States the spread is 19.6 percentage points, ranging from minus 0.8 per cent in Luxembourg, the only country in the Union where on average men earn less than women, to 18.8 per cent in Estonia. The 2024 figures remain provisional until the benchmark values from the Structure of Earnings Survey become available in December 2026.
The breakdowns of the indicator return an uneven picture. In 2024 the gap is wider in the private sector than in the public sector in every Member State for which data are available, with the exception of Slovenia: from 6.1 per cent in Belgium to 21.8 per cent in Portugal in the private sector, and from minus 3.5 per cent in Cyprus to 17.4 per cent in Czechia in the public sector. In financial and insurance activities the values are higher, reaching 40.3 per cent in Hungary. The gap is generally narrower for new entrants into the labour market and tends to widen with age.
The Council of the European Union places the pension pay gap alongside the pay gap, at around 25 per cent in the Union according to Eurostat data for 2024: lower earnings over a working life translate into lower pensions and weaker social protection coverage.
The European rules on pay transparency
Directive (EU) 2023/970 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 strengthens the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms. The text was adopted by the Council on 24 April 2023 and the deadline for transposition into national law was set at 7 June 2026.
In its explanatory note of 5 June 2026 the European Commission summarises the obligations placed on employers: informing job seekers about the starting salary or pay range, in the vacancy notice or ahead of the interview, and no longer being allowed to ask about pay history; providing employees, on request, with information on their individual pay level and on average pay levels, broken down by sex, for categories of workers doing the same work or work of equal value; publishing information on the pay gap between female and male workers, for employers with at least 100 employees; carrying out a pay assessment where pay reports reveal a gender pay gap of at least 5 per cent that cannot be justified.
On remedies, the Commission points to compensation for workers who have suffered gender pay discrimination, the duty of employers that fail to meet transparency obligations to prove that there was no pay discrimination, the requirement for Member States to set penalties, and the possibility for equality bodies and workers’ representatives to represent workers in legal or administrative proceedings. The Council specifies that reporting on the pay gap is annual for organisations with more than 250 employees and takes place every three years for smaller ones, while organisations with fewer than 100 employees have no reporting obligation, and that the joint pay assessment is carried out in cooperation with workers’ representatives. The Council also notes that the text includes intersectional discrimination for the first time and contains provisions ensuring that the needs of workers with disabilities are taken into account.
Transposition in Italy
In Italy the directive was transposed by legislative decree no. 96 of 7 May 2026, published in the Official Gazette, General Series no. 125 of 1 June 2026 and in force since 7 June 2026, the same day set by the directive as the transposition deadline.
The decree consists of seventeen articles arranged in five chapters: general provisions (articles 1 to 4), pay transparency (articles 5 to 11), remedies (articles 12 and 13), monitoring and statistics (articles 14 and 15) and final provisions (articles 16 and 17). The structure mirrors that of the directive, with a chapter devoted to the collection and transmission of data, the part that over time will feed the statistical comparison between Member States.
The international labour framework
In the statement issued for the observance of 18 September 2026, UN Women linked equal pay to three developments of the year. The first is the seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, at which governments, employers, workers and private sector leaders renewed commitments on the structural barriers holding women back at work. The second is the adoption, in June 2026, of ILO Convention No. 193, the first international labour standard on decent work in the platform economy, which UN Women considers relevant for women working through digital platforms in relation to unfair pay, harassment, discrimination and opaque algorithmic decisions. The third is the opening of the eighty first session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which took place on 8 September 2026.
The same statement describes the cumulative effects of the gap: lower lifetime earnings, less economic security, smaller pensions and inequality passed across generations, with wider gaps for migrant women, women with disabilities and women from racial and ethnic minorities.
Outlook
The European legal framework is now settled in its content, while its practical effect remains to be seen. The Eurostat figures for 2024 will become definitive with the benchmark values from the Structure of Earnings Survey expected in December 2026, and the effect of the new rules on the gap will not be readable in the indicators before the reporting cycles that follow transposition. On the technical side, EPIC convened for 28 September 2026 a virtual event devoted to the relationship between pay transparency and the gender wage gap. In Italy the chapter of legislative decree no. 96 of 2026 devoted to monitoring and statistics sets out the route along which national data will feed into the European comparison.
In dialogue with the 2030 Agenda
Goal 5 (Gender equality). Equal pay for work of equal value is one of the conditions of women’s economic autonomy, and the pay gap measures the distance still to be covered.
Goal 8 (Decent work and economic growth). The 2030 Agenda explicitly links decent work to equal pay for work of equal value, for women and men and for persons with disabilities.
Goal 10 (Reduced inequalities). The pay gap accumulates over time and is reflected in pensions and social protection, with sharper effects on certain groups of women workers.
Goal 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions). Information duties, rules on the burden of proof and access to remedies move the question from a statement of principle to the level of enforcement tools.
Sources
- United Nations, International Equal Pay Day
- UN Women, statement for International Equal Pay Day 2026
- Eurostat, Gender pay gap statistics
- European Commission, New EU rules on pay transparency explained (5 June 2026)
- Council of the European Union, Pay transparency in the EU
- Directive (EU) 2023/970 of 10 May 2023
- Legislative decree no. 96 of 7 May 2026
- Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC)
