November 14th: the day women stop being paid for their work.

National Equal Pay Day is marked this year on November 14th, today, the date from which women theoretically stop being paid for their work.

The gender pay gap in Portugal stands at an average of 13.2% to the detriment of women, according to the latest data from the Wage Gap Barometer between Women and Men for 2022.

Translating that percentage into days, it would be as if women stopped being paid for their work from November 14th until the end of the calendar year, which would be equivalent to 48 days without receiving any remuneration.

In the short term, the fight against the gender pay gap may count on an important instrument: the new European Directive on Pay Transparency, which must be transposed into national law by June 7, 2026.

Among other changes, the directive has reinforced the information and communication duties that bind companies, namely:

• Duty to inform job candidates in advance about the initial remuneration or salary range of the job they are applying for;
• Duty to inform workers about the average remuneration, by gender, for the same functions;
• Duty to inform workers about the criteria used to define remuneration and salary progression;
• Duty to annually communicate to the competent national authority the report on salary disparities between men and women, in the case of companies with more than 250 workers, and every three years in the case of companies with more than 100 workers.

These obligations presuppose that greater salary transparency will better equip companies and workers in the difficult task of detecting any unjustified discrimination that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Only in the future will it be possible to assess the effectiveness of this type of policy in combating the gender pay gap. For now, companies should prepare for the challenges posed by the new obligations regarding pay transparency and, above all, take advantage of these changes to distinguish themselves as drivers of change.