“Discrimination is not unavoidable, and employers are often saying they don’t care whether it’s a man or a woman, and what their ages are [...] but women, especially during job interviews, are still receiving questions on family planning,” said Agneta Skardžiuvienė, from the Office of Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson.
“Employers are still finding it hard to accept women,” who are planning to have children, she said on LRT TV.
Data from Statistics Lithuania show that the pay-gap between women and men in the country stood at 13 percent in 2018.
According to Skardžiuvienė, “two-thirds of the [reasons] for pay difference are unexplainable, subjective, or aren’t known".
This could be down to education segregation, when women choose professions which are paid less, and also direct and indirect discrimination.
It’s important to identify the problem, said Skardžiuvienė, and “there is a software lygybesplanai.lt, which allows the employer to undertake internal audit to see wages based on gender".
