Women block in European career

(BRUSSELS2) While the debate on women at the head of the European Commission risks being revived if the Member States do not make a small effort (read: There is a lack of women in the future 2014 Commission. A real political problem…), we can also look at the (small) European staff. The report - if it is better than in a number of Member States - is not really encouraging, however, for equality between men and women.

Women... darlings at the bottom of the ladder!

When we look at the detailed personnel statistics of the European Commission, we see that women are all the more cherished when they are at the bottom of the ladder... It is quite clear when you put the figures in a spreadsheet (which we did, with percentage calculation for each category). Women represent 2/3 on average of assistant positions (66%) but are only 2/5th when we look at administrator positions (42%). And still it is about average... The more one goes up in the hierarchy, in each of the categories, the more the feminine power is eroded. And conversely...

A career blocker

At the level of the assistants, it is obvious. While women are clearly in the majority in the various grades - almost 90% in the lower levels up to 75% in the middle levels - from grade 8, when it comes to accessing positions of responsibility, it reverses. And at the top level, there is only barely 1 in 5 women.

Same for administrators. With a less steep profile. Although the distribution is fairly balanced up to level AD9 (another 44%), it decreases rapidly as soon as one moves on to positions of responsibility, reaching barely a quarter at the three higher levels (General Managers or Directors, AD14 to AD16).

There is like a glass ceiling that women cannot cross, quite incomprehensible in view of the speeches displayed. Would women become less competent when they go from AD 8 to AD 12?

Significant wage inequality

This fact leads to glaring wage inequality. An AD8 or an AD9 earns, in fact, between 6300 euros and 8200 euros (*) while an AD13 or AD14 (director level) passes, respectively, the bar of 12.000 or 13.000 euros and a 15 or AD16 happily caps at 17 or 18.000 euros (general manager level). If we rely on the rules put in place by the European Court of Justice, we are faced with a fairly blatant case of violation of equal pay for men and women.

A real problem

At the European Commission, questioned by B2, we are well aware of this problem. Female directors say they want to go into management/leadership positions. But when you look at the balance between men and women in the applications for these positions, very few are women,” explained one of the spokespersons for the European executive. However, the Commission refuses to accept its “defeat”. We “started to examine why women do not apply and took action to address these reasons and encourage more women to apply with different mechanisms (monitoring, early identification and encouragement of talent, etc.).

A well-paid European civil service

Incidentally, we note that nearly 3000 EU civil servants (i.e. a third of the civil service) earn more than 12.000 euros per month (grade AD 13), i.e. a fifth of the European civil service (5000 people if we take the level of AD12), with congestion at levels AD 12 and AD 13. This is notable in times of economic crisis and perhaps also explains the budgetary problems that the European Commission has. Even if wages have been virtually frozen (a fact little known to the general public) since 2010.

(*) basic salary, without bonus