The wage inequality between men and women in Germany’s labor market stayed unchanged in 2025. The overall “Gender Market Gap” was reported at 37 percent, the same level as the previous year, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
In 2025 the unadjusted gender pay gap stood at 16 percent, meaning women earned 16 percent less per hour than men. Of this gap, roughly two‑thirds can be attributed to characteristics available for analysis; the remaining unexplained portion corresponds to an adjusted pay gap of six percent.
A key contributor to the overall wage differences is still the higher proportion of women working part‑time. Across all types of employment, men averaged about 34 hours per week in 2025, while women worked only about 28 hours. This translates into an 18‑percent “Gender Hours Gap” showing that women invested 18 percent less time in paid work than men, a pattern that persists from previous years.
Employment participation also differs by gender. In 2024, roughly 74 percent of women were engaged in paid work, compared with about 81 percent of men. Consequently, the “Gender Employment Gap” fell by one percentage point to eight percent from the prior year. The overall Gender Market Gap is derived from combining these three constituent gaps.
The situation varies markedly across federal states. In the eastern states, the extended wage‑inequality indicator was 22 percent in 2025, considerably lower than the 39 percent seen in the west. The smallest Market Gap was in Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern at 17 percent, followed by Saxony‑Anhalt at 20 percent. In contrast, western states showed higher figures: the highest levels were in Baden‑Württemberg and Bavaria at 41 percent, with Hesse, Lower Saxony, and Saarland each around 40 percent.
The pronounced East‑West discrepancy largely reflects historically higher female labor participation in the former East Germany, along with a greater prevalence of full‑time work among women there. These factors help keep the gender pay gap, hours gap, and employment gap lower in the east than in the west.
