Are women paying more than men?
Let me count the ways.
You’ve heard of the gender pay gap and the gender pension gap, but there are other ways, too, that women end up paying a higher price.
From shaving your legs to buying shoes to paying your taxes, it pays to mind the gaps.
Pink tax
If you’re a woman who has ever bought deodorant, shampoo or razors, you’ll know many are more expensive than equivalent products for men.
A razor may differ only in colour, name or description, but because it is marketed as “for women” it’s priced higher.
This is gender-based price discrimination, and women will find plenty of so-called pink tax products in their shopping trolley.
Shower gels, vitamin pills, haircuts and jeans are other examples of pink tax products.
Even some medication marketed specifically for period pain is the same as standard painkillers.
You’ll also see a pink tax on services such as hairdressing, dry-cleaning and in the beauty industry too.
In January, Belgian MEP Liesbet Sommen raised the pink tax with the European Parliament, asking when unjustified price differences that resulted in higher costs to women would be tackled.
There’s been no comprehensive EU-wide research on the issue and the Commission must investigate and map the phenomenon to which many women have become accustomed, Sommen said.
In 2017, Germany’s Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency examined more than 1,500 products. It found that gender-based pricing of products wasn’t widespread, but did happen.
Men paid a higher price for a male variant of products in some cases, but women paid a higher price for the female variant in more cases. The average surcharge to women was €5.
There were far more cases of gender-specific pricing in the service industry, the German agency found. Those offering services such as hairdressing, dry cleaning, facial treatments and tailoring often displayed separate price lists for men and women, it said.
Germany identified 381 similar services variations for a specific gender, 59 per cent of these revealing a price difference: 50 per cent were more expensive for women, and just 9 per cent were more expensive for men.
Hairdressing and dry-cleaning showed the most obvious gender-based price differences, the agency said, adding that 89 per cent of the hairdressers offered different rates for the same short haircuts for women and men, with women paying an average of €12.50 more.
A hairdresser shouldn’t draw conclusions about the expected effort required to cut a person’s hair based on their gender, the German agency said.
One-third of dry cleaners in the study had different flat rates for men’s shirts and women’s blouses. Women paid on average €1.80 more for the dry cleaning of blouses than men did for shirts.
Price differences for basically the same product or services which are offered in two gender-specific versions through gender marketing must be justified, it said.
In 2023, the European Commission said it had no plans to introduce additional measures to address gender price discrimination. Sommen is calling for these now and for a tightening of laws on indirect discrimination based on sex.
In response to a query, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission said there were no specific regulations here against prices being adjusted depending on a consumer’s gender.
“Individual businesses can decide on the prices of the products they sell,” a spokeswoman said. “They are allowed to adjust their prices in response to demand or other factors, as long as an accurate price is displayed to the consumer in advance so they can decide if they want to proceed.”
Be informed and shop around, the CCPC says. To dodge the pink tax, it’s up to women themselves to look critically at products and services they buy.
Gender inflation gap
Are you a woman who does most of the grocery shopping in your household? Then you might have experienced the gender inflation gap. The gender inflation gap is where women tend to have higher inflation expectations than men.
This can affect women’s finances, impacting spending and investing to their detriment. How people experience inflation depends on how they perceive things such as the price of food, health, clothing, transport, utilities.
All of these matter, but perception of food inflation matters the most, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) blog, from September 2022, called What Drives Inflation Expectations of Women and Men?.
The gender inflation gap has been attributed to some women’s greater involvement in food shopping and exposure to volatile food prices, the ECB said. This may sound a bit 1950s, but men and women still spend their money on different things and have varying perceptions of inflation.
The gender inflation gap was observed more among married people aged 35 to 49, partially reflecting how couples split tasks based on gender, the ECB said. It was less among younger, single women.
Why does this matter? As consumers, the way we perceive inflation affects our actions. If the object you buy most is increasing in price or there is price volatility, then this may cause you to alter your spending in other areas.
Women tended to perceive food inflation as higher, while men paid more attention to changes in transport, clothing and housing prices, the ECB said.
“Women might be less prone than men to cancelling, postponing or reducing their holiday plans when energy prices spike or be less influenced by a similar spike when planning to purchase a car,” the ECB said.
Household shopping bills in Ireland have risen by more than 20 per cent when compared with late 2021, Kantar Worldpanel said.
A person who expects that inflation is higher due to rapidly rising grocery prices may decide to save more instead of investing or might curtail pension contributions. This will have an effect on their financial wellbeing.
Better financial literacy would help men and women bridge the gender inflation gap, the ECB said. This would broaden the evidence base on which they made financial decisions, better informing their shopping and investing decisions.
Inflation
Alongside women’s perceptions of inflation, actual inflation affects women more, too. Soaring prices in recent years have disproportionately affected women, the National Women’s Council says.
In general, women have lower incomes, fewer resources, less wealth and greater unpaid care responsibilities, the council says. This limits their choices around paid work and means greater reliance on low-paid and precarious work.
Six out of 10 low-paid workers are women. Lone parents, 86 per cent of whom are women, have less wealth and savings, too. They are less likely to own a home or to be able to access credit.
All of this means women are less able to bear the impact of rising costs, the council says.
People with childcare responsibilities faced an especially severe cost-of-living crisis, the World Economic Forum has said.
But the high cost of childcare disproportionately affected women, making it more difficult to work. The inflation crisis also threatened to unravel progress on closing the gender pay gap for women, the forum said. Women were less likely than men to receive a salary rise at a rate higher than inflation in 2022, it said.
To top it off, prices of products aimed at women rose faster than those aimed at men between 2020 and 2021, one analysis in Britain found.
Women’s formal shoes had price increases of 75 per cent in 2021, while those for men increased by only 14 per cent, an analysis of Office of National Statistics data by The New Statesman showed.
Similar inequalities were visible when it came to electric razors, T-shirts, jeans and haircuts in the UK.
Overall, inflation affects some women far more than men.
Joint taxation bias
If you’re a married couple, being jointly assessed for tax will decrease your household’s overall tax bill, but is it discriminatory?
Joint assessment may inadvertently carry an implicit gender bias, according to Taxation’s Impact on Gender Equality in the EU, a publication from the European Parliament Members Research Service published in January. The service is responsible for providing MEPs with policy research and analysis to help them in their parliamentary work.
While joint assessment will reduce your household’s tax burden, especially where there is significant income disparity between the two partners, it can also lead to a disproportionately higher marginal tax rate for the lower income earner who often is a woman.
This effect can make additional earnings less financially rewarding, discouraging women from transitioning from part-time to full-time employment, the publication said.
“These tax structures can contribute to broader gender inequalities by limiting women’s career advancement and undermining their economic independence in the long term,” author Pieter Baert said.
Joint taxation systems are increasingly being phased out, although several European countries, including Ireland, continue to have them in place on mandatory or voluntary basis.
