The Spanish government has passed a law for employers to disclose the pay of its male and female employees, to tackle gender inequality in the workplace.
The new regulation, announced on 13 October 2020, will require employers with more than 50 employees to submit their pay figures and evaluate their gender positioning. Additionally, businesses must prepare an equality plan and carry out a remuneration report to address gender equality.
To aid businesses in reducing this gender pay gap, the Ministries of Labour and Equality will provide businesses with free tools that offer information and advice on how to reduce their gender pay gap, and address gender inequality issues.
Yolanda Díaz, the minister of labour and social economy for the Spanish government, said: " This will place Spain in the European vanguard of remuneration transparency and equality between men and women in the workplace. Women lacked the right to remunerative information. With the incorporation of this regulation, public access to the registry will allow inequalities to emerge.
"By being effective, these equality plans place the role of women in it far beyond equal pay: we are talking about the main role they will play in the 21st-century business."
Irene Montero, the minister of equality for the Spanish government, added: "The wage gap between men and women continues to be above 20% in Spain and as a feminist government we will do everything possible to close that gap. Hence the importance of the two royal decrees approved by the Council of Ministers today. What this Council of Ministers approves today (13 October 2020) is also a vaccine against inequality, which we know is the other pandemic that our country suffers.”
