Across the last decade in the EU, the gender gap for median equivalised net income* was close to 5%. In absolute terms for the year 2021, the median value for men was €18 774, roughly €800 higher than that for females, valued at € 17 972.
Taking into consideration the variations in the degrees or urbanisation, in the same year, the gender gap in the EU for net income was observed to be narrower for people living in rural areas (4.0%) than it was for those living in cities (4.8%).
On a national level, the gaps in gender income appeared higher in cites than in rural areas in 13 Member states. Malta and Lithuania recorded the highest differences in terms of degree of urbanisation, with Malta representing 7.3 percentage points and Lithuania 8.5.
Comparatively, in the 14 countries with higher income gaps in rural areas than in cities, the largest differences were observed in Austria (5.3 pp) and Italy (4.2 pp).
In both Austrian cities and in Maltese rural contexts, the income gap favoured females coming in a -1.7% and -4.4% respectively.
* “total income of a household, after tax and other deductions, that is available for spending or saving, divided by the number of household members converted into equalised adults; household members are equalised or made equivalent by weighting each according to their age, using the so-called modified OECD equivalence scale.”
