Income, wealth and gender: study and practical web tool for understanding gender pay and pension gaps in Estonia - the country with biggest gender pay gap in EU

ended

InWeGe - Income, wealth and gender - studies the wage and pension differences in Estonia - the country with the biggest gender pay gap in Europe - and offers a free of charge and evidence based innovative web application for women to use to make better choices and to have more arguments for better, equal salaries and thus to lower the pension gap. Project promotes gender gap in income and wealth over the life cycle. Interactive tool raises broader awareness for gender issues. The project has three objectives. First, it analyses gender gap in financial and pension assets, focusing on Estonia, but using data also from other European countries. Second, the project reveals new factors behind gender income gap in Estonia such as investments in innovation, transition past from communist to market economy and poverty of older women. And finally the web application that predicts wages and pension entitlements of especially women. The project is fulfilled by the Gender Equality and Equal Treatment Commissioners office (a state expert body for gender equality) in a collaboration with two biggest universities in Estonia - The Tartu University and the Tallinn Technical University. The outcomes of the project are studies and analyses on the gender aspects in income and wealth, which then will be promoted and will have a practical outcome - web application. The web application can be used by everybody, who wants to compare the offered or existent salary level to the market level, compared also with the educational background, gender and other relevant data. The use of the web application makes Estonian labour market more open and transparent, helps women with their wage equality and gives a tool to the individuals to compare the pension outcome from different personal decisions - to accept a lower salary, to resign from the labour market, to be educated in a new area etc. This will help women and other decision makers for better understanding of the impacts.