Gender equality in the labor market is stagnating in Switzerland

Switzerland moved up one place in the international comparison to 20th place. However, the overall score, which is based on labor market data from 2024, remained unchanged from the previous year at 68.7 points.

According to the study, the employment rate for women was 80.8%, a slight increase on the previous year (80.4%). At the same time, the full-time employment rate for women fell from 60.7% to 59.2%. The gender pay gap widened slightly and remained high at 17.4%, according to PWC.

Despite stable overall figures, PWC sees a structural need for Switzerland to catch up. High part-time rates among women, care bottlenecks and caring responsibilities are slowing down equality, it says. Companies could specifically promote female specialists through more flexible working models and a better work-life balance.

A comparison of the 33 OECD countries also showed stagnation. However, the pay gap developed positively: It decreased across the OECD by 0.6 percentage points to 12.4 percent. This means that Switzerland is still well above the OECD average in terms of wage inequality.

The index is once again led by Iceland, followed by Luxembourg, New Zealand, Slovenia and Sweden. According to PWC, these countries combine high employment rates with family-friendly working models and good childcare. At the bottom of the ranking are Mexico, South Korea, Chile, Italy and Greece.

The "Women in Work Index" has been evaluating equality in the labor market in 33 OECD countries based on five indicators since 2011.