The unadjusted gender pay gap for employees in Iceland was 16.1% in 2016, according to research by Statistics Iceland.
Its gender pay gap analysis, which is based on the Structure of earnings survey and represents the difference between average gross hourly earnings of male employees and female employees as a proportion of men’s hourly earnings, including paid overtime and regular bonuses but excluding non-regular payments, also found that the unadjusted pay gap for employees working in the private sector in Iceland is 16.4% for 2016, compared to 15.9% for those working in the public sector. In 2015, the unadjusted gender pay gap the private and public sectors was 16.7% and 14.6% respectively.
The unadjusted gender pay gap, which has not been adjusted according to individual characteristics, may explain differences in earnings for men and women. For employees working for central government in the public sector in 2016 was 16.3%, compared to 8.3% for those working within local government. For 2015, the unadjusted gender pay gap for staff working in central government was 14.9%, compared to 7.2% for local government staff in 2015.
On average, total earnings, which are based on the Icelandic survey on wages, earnings and labour costs and relate to the total remuneration per month excluding payments in kind, for women were 22% lower than the total earnings for men in 2016, averaging 582,000 ISK compared to 742,000 ISK. Approximately 15% of men in Iceland and 6% of women had total monthly earnings above one million ISK in 2016. The median earnings for men in 2016 were 643,000 ISK, compared to 525,000 ISK for women.