Around one quarter of the year, the women in Vorarlberg are effectively in slavery — according to the official income statistics. So how can this still happen, today, in the heart of the free world? The magic word here, as worldwide, would be trivialization.

The graph corresponds to the calculations of BPW Austria and the AMS for Equal Pay Day based on data from Statistk Austria.

On the sombre occasion of today’s Austrian Equal Pay Day, the team at Austrians, with the assistance of AI, has compiled a devastating study. For clarification: Equal Pay Day symbolically marks the point in the year up to which women — measured by the average pay gap — would have to work unpaid in order to earn the same income as men. The later this day falls in the calendar year, the larger the pay gap.

The situation in Austria

The gender pay gap in Austria remains significant — and varies widely between federal states. Current calculations by BPW Austria and the Public Employment Service (AMS) for Equal Pay Day show that women continue to earn noticeably less than men on average, with considerable regional differences.

The smallest income gap is found in Vienna: there, the gender pay gap stands at around 11 %, corresponding to approximately 40 unpaid working days per year. Burgenland (15.3 %) and Lower Austria (16.5 %) also lie below the national average.

The income gap is considerably larger in the western federal states. In Upper Austria, the gender pay gap exceeds 20 %, while in Vorarlberg it reaches the highest level at 22.7 %. Statistically, women there have to work around 83 additional days to reach the average annual income of men.

Carinthia, Styria, Salzburg and Tyrol form the middle group, with income differences between roughly 17 and 18.6 %. Nationwide, Austria’s unadjusted gender pay gap most recently stood at around 18 %.

These disparities are explained, among other factors, by differences in economic structure, the proportion of part-time employment, sector-specific wage levels, and the unequal distribution of leadership positions. Equal Pay Day makes this income gap symbolically visible.

Under the motto: Female slaves are not real slaves

Our study on the estimated Equal Pay Day in the G20 countries and the EU highlights how far aspirations and reality diverge when it comes to gender equality.

The data shown are based on uniformly estimated calculations derived from the unadjusted gender pay gap, converted from percentage values into calendar days. They do not replace national statistics yet allow for a comparable international overview. Data sources: OECD, Eurostat, ILO (International Labor Organization).

Key findings

East Asia stands out particularly negatively: South Korea and Japan top the ranking with very late Equal Pay Days.

Major Western democracies such as Germany, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom fall into the middle range — far from genuine pay equality.

Austria and the EU average perform better than many G20 countries, yet still fall well short of the goal of full equality.

Countries with very early dates (e.g. Italy, Turkey) sometimes benefit from structural effects (lower full-time employment rates among women), rather than from genuine equality.

The political contradiction

A striking normative contradiction emerges from the data: many countries that position themselves internationally as particularly critical of Islam or religion, and justify headscarf bans or restrictions on religious symbols with feminist arguments, simultaneously exhibit substantial pay inequalities between women and men.

References to women’s rights often serve as a cultural boundary marker, while the material reality — equal pay for equal work — remains unresolved. The feminism invoked in political discourse thus proves to be symbolic rather than economically effective.

Commentary: How much is this feminism worth?

Anyone who systematically grants women lower pay for equal work effectively keeps them in economic dependency. Equality is reduced to rhetoric, while power and ownership structures remain untouched. The figures presented suggest that in many states, equality fails not because of cultural attitudes, yet at the payslip.

A striking normative contrast emerges here: the Holy Quran explicitly formulates in Surah An-Nahl (16:71) the principle that people should not disadvantage one another in matters of livelihood. Regardless of religious interpretation, this expresses a clear claim to justice that stands in stark contradiction to the existing pay gaps in many self-proclaimed champions of equality.

“And Allah preferred some of you to some in Sustenance. Then those who were preferred are not the returner of their Sustenance to which of their right hands possessed, so they be in equality in it. Is it then the Blessing of Allah they reject?”

The Holy Quran, An-Nahl/The Bee 16:71

If democracies of the so-called “free world” claim to be role models in matters of human and women’s rights, this table also calls their understanding of democracy into question: political freedom without economic equality remains hollow.

Conclusion

Equal Pay Day is more than a calendar entry. It is a reality check. As long as women in large parts of the world — including established democracies — earn for same work less than men, equality remains, to put it mildly, an unfulfilled promise — and, not to put it mildly, slavery.

>>-> Why Austria’s Young Women Hit the Pay Trap Despite Catching Up

By Okay Altinisik | 11-2-2026, 9:08:41