Young Swiss women still earn less despite educational gains

Women born in 1995 still earned 14% less than men by their late twenties and early thirties. That figure captures a major improvement over earlier generations, while showing that education and labour-market participation have not erased the income divide in Switzerland.

The finding comes from a study by the University of Lausanne and the FORS Centre of Excellence in Social Sciences, published in Social Change in Switzerland. Daniel Oesch and Oliver Lipps examined Swiss Labour Force Survey data on more than 215,000 people aged 25 to 34 between 1991 and 2024.

The researchers describe the trend as a “catch-up”. Women born in 1965 had total earned income 55% below men’s at the same stage of life. For the 1995 cohort, the gap had fallen to 14%.

The result matters because the younger cohort entered adulthood with stronger formal qualifications and employment patterns closer to men’s. The remaining difference is therefore increasingly tied to how careers, occupations, working time and family responsibilities shape earnings after education has narrowed the starting gap.

Young women now lead young men in tertiary education, 54% to 48%. The educational advantage includes university degrees, degrees from universities of applied sciences and higher vocational qualifications. It marks a clear shift from the conditions faced by earlier cohorts.

The study also records convergence in labour-market behaviour. The difference in weekly working hours fell from 17 hours to fewer than four hours. At the hourly level, the standardised wage gap narrowed from almost 20% to less than 5%.

Women have also moved increasingly into occupations with higher earning potential, according to the researchers. These changes help explain why the total income gap has contracted so sharply across birth cohorts. Total income reflects more than the pay attached to one hour of work. It also captures how many hours people work, whether they remain attached to the labour market and which occupations they enter.

The figures do not identify a single cause for the remaining 14% gap. They show that similar education and increasingly similar working patterns have not produced equal total earnings by the time people reach their late twenties and early thirties.

Parenthood sharply widens the income divide. Among childless women, the gap fell from 27% for the 1965 cohort to 7% for the 1995 cohort. Among parents, the gap also narrowed over time, but remained 51% for the younger cohort.

The comparison places family formation at the centre of the study’s findings. Before children, women in the younger cohort came much closer to men’s income than women of the same age in the older cohort. After parenthood, the difference became far larger.

The figures describe an income outcome, not the individual decisions or household arrangements behind it. They do not show how care is divided within each family, which parent reduces working hours, or how career interruptions affect later earnings. They do show that the broad gains seen among young women do not carry evenly into the years when many people establish families.

For Switzerland, the distinction is particularly relevant because the study compares total earned income, combining pay and the amount of work performed. A small hourly wage gap can coexist with a much larger annual or total income difference when working time and career progression diverge after children arrive.

Switzerland’s youngest comparison cohort had the smallest income gap among five countries studied. The researchers compared the Swiss 1965 and 1995 cohorts with France, Sweden, Britain and the United States.

The international ranking reflects the scale of Switzerland’s change. The 1965 Swiss cohort had the second-largest income gap in the comparison. By the 1995 cohort, Switzerland had moved to the position with the smallest gap.

That progress follows several changes recorded in the Swiss data: women’s higher educational attainment, greater movement into better-paid occupations, closer labour-force participation and a much smaller difference in weekly working hours. The hourly wage gap also declined to less than 5% on a standardised basis.

International comparisons provide perspective, but they do not remove the domestic differences visible in the study. The 14% total income gap remains for the younger Swiss cohort, and parenthood produces a far wider divide than childlessness. Switzerland’s position among the countries examined therefore measures relative progress, while the cohort data show where inequality remains concentrated.

The next test will come after age 34, when early career patterns meet long-term family and workplace decisions. The study shows substantial gains among younger cohorts, but its parenthood figures indicate that equal qualifications do not guarantee equal income through the first years of family life.

The researchers’ data stop short of assigning responsibility to particular employers, sectors or household choices. They establish a pattern across a large national sample: women have gained ground in education, working hours, occupational position and hourly wages, yet total income remains lower than men’s.

For people entering the Swiss labour market, the distinction between hourly pay and total earnings is important. A standardised hourly gap below 5% sits alongside a 14% total income gap for the 1995 cohort. Working time, occupational selection and the economic effects of parenthood all remain part of the calculation.

The figures offer a clear benchmark for future research and policy. Progress can be tracked not only through qualifications or hourly wages, but also through income after children, continued labour-market participation and the distribution of working hours between women and men.