“Gender Pay Gap in the Perspective of Differentiated European Integration”

Scholars of European differentiated integration have focused so far predominantly on the legal and institutional aspects of differentiation. This (de iure) approach is legitimate in the cases of European monetary integration or other policy domains in which the supranational legislative framework is implemented differently across the variety of European Union’s member states. In this sense the system of differentiated European integration is an answer to the growing heterogeneity of EU members’ capacity, preferences, and will to integrate deeper, further, or faster. There are however relatively less studies that examine the ideational fundaments of these cases of differentiation. The starting assumption of this paper states that the map of European differentiated integration is overlappingly placed on the “tectonic plates” built of differentiated system of norms and values. Some of them are shared across the continent, whereas some others are shared unequally among diversified nations and societal groups. Gender equality-related norms and values offer a fertile ground for studying this differentiation. This is why the case study explored in this paper will focus on the gender pay gap and how it differs across selected EU member states. The hard data on gender pay gap will be confronted with the legislative framework (both on the supranational and nation-state level) on this subject matter, as well as with the ideational dispositions related with gender equality. By examining the three levels of differentiation - (1) de facto, (2) de iure, and (3) the normative ideational foundations associated with the gender pay gap - this research will provide a comprehensive picture of gender equality differentiation across united Europe. By doing so, it will contribute to our better understanding of the ideational foundations of European differentiation, as well as it will provide a novel perspective on the gender pay gap issue.