INEQUALITY | PANEL DISCUSSION

Gender Pay Gap - The Skills Shortage as an Opportunity for Women?

14/March/2023

6 pm

PLACE

ProjektZentrum, Neue Promenade 6, 10178 Berlin

LANGUAGE

German

Despite all the proclamations, women still earn less than men on average. Is the acute shortage of skilled workers an opportunity to finally shrink the pay gap? Because women are urgently needed? Or do structural disadvantages prevail? We invited Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus to discuss her perspective and the government’s plans in this regard at our panel on March 14 with journalists Sabine Rennefanz and Maraget Heckel, DIW economist Katharina Wrohlich and manager and board member Simone Menne.

 

Women in Germany still earn on average 18% less per hour than men. At the same time, the economy is suffering from demographic change and an increasing shortage of skilled workers. Is this shifting the balance of power in favor of women in the labor market? Will pay automatically improve? Or will demographics not change that much at all because there are deeper structural barriers, such as an unequal distribution of unpaid care work or simply outdated stereotypes? What more would it take, then, to address the gender pay gap?

 

We cordially invite you to participate in the discussion. Please note the event takes place in German.

Lisa Paus

has been Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth since 2022 and is a member of the Bundestag for the Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen. Previously, she was spokeswoman for financial policy. She is a studied economist.

Sabine Rennefanz

is a journalist and author. She regularly writes columns on equality issues for Spiegel magazine, among others. She is the author of the book "Women and Children Last: How Crises Challenge Social Justice," in which she takes a critical look at social structures that continue to disadvantage women today.

Simone Menne

is a supervisory board member in various companies and spent decades as an executive and board member at Lufthansa and Boehringer Ingelheim. She is a regular speaker on the topics of women in business and social transformation.

Katharina Wrohlich

 is Professor of Public Finance, Gender and Family Economics at the University of Potsdam and Head of the Gender Economics Research Group at DIW Berlin. Her research focuses on the evaluation of family, tax, and social policies as well as analyses of gender gaps in the labor market.

Margaret Heckel

 is a political and business journalist. Most recently, she was head of politics at "Welt," "Welt am Sonntag" and "Financial Times Deutschland." She is the author of the bestseller "So regiert die Kanzlerin." Her focus is on solutions for demographic change and the changing world of work.