Illustrative stock photo. (source: Sme)
As many as 73.7 percent of Slovak women aged 20-24 have secondary school or university education, the TASR newswire quoted the study. Slovak men ended up in second place among all the countries researched. As many as 80.1 percent of Slovak men aged 20-24 completed a secondary school or university; Slovakia thus finds itself among the most educated countries in Europe.
Even though women live more independent lives when compared to past generations, they still have lower incomes. They often sacrifice much for their families and have part-time jobs, which leads to lower pensions than for men. According to the study, pensions of men are 40 percent higher than women’s in the European Union on average. Meanwhile, Slovakia is in first place in the EU in terms of pension equality between men and women, with the lowest difference in men’s and women’s pensions – only 8 percent.
However, the gap between the salaries of men and women is wider in Slovakia than in the EU on average, head of the European Commission Representation in Slovakia Dušan Chrenek has noted. The difference in Slovakia is 19.8 percent, with the level of women employed in Slovakia also being considerably lower than the one for men.
“While women in Europe in 2014 had to work two months more to make the same amount of money as men, Slovak women had to spend even more time at work in order to obtain the same reward as men,” Chrenek said, as quoted by TASR.
The EU supports several projects in Slovakia aimed at boosting women’s employment and at eliminating inequality in remuneration. These include projects dedicated to increasing the capacities of preschool facilities, support for more flexible forms of women's employment and company nursery schools.
