Gender has negligible effect on wages in Cyprus amongst educated, study finds

Gender has been found to not be a significant factor on how wages are determined amongst the educated in Cyprus, a study has revealed.

The Structure of Earnings Survey is produced by the European Union and looks at the impact of various factors on employee salaries, as well as the characteristics of those employees, across the EU.

The study takes into account datasets spanning a period of four years, with the latest survey taking into account data collected between 2014 and 2018.

“Three groups can be distinguished. A first group: Slovakia, Czechia, Austria, Finland, Poland, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Sweden includes countries where women receive lower financial returns for education compared with men, at least for some education levels,” the study states.

“A second group, made up of Malta, Luxembourg, Portugal and the Netherlands, gathers countries where women receive a higher financial return than men from their educational achievements,” the study adds.

Cyprus is not alone in seeing little or not impact on wages when gender is factored into the equation.

“Finally, a middle group covers countries with limited or no impact of gender on the financial returns of education, except for very specific education levels (e.g. Croatia for upper tertiary). This group consists of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia and Italy,” the study explains.

Secondary education far from enough in Cyprus

Where Cyprus exhibits a more clear-cut tendency is in how it rewards the educated.

Cyprus, along with Ireland, rewards workers who entered the job market after completing their secondary education the least among all European Union countries.

Cyprus also joins the vast majority of EU member states in bringing the largest increase in wages for workers who have completed their lower tertiary education, meaning those who have acquired a bachelor’s degree.

There are five notable exceptions to this rule: Slovakia, Spain, Italy, Estonia and Malta.

Completing your upper secondary education has a larger impact on wages in the above five countries when contrasted to lower tertiary education.

While it is a common trope in Cyprus to say that unless you have a master’s degree then you are not competitive enough in the domestic job market, this is now also backed by statistical evidence.

The above is evident in the study finding that obtaining a master’s degree or a professional doctoral degree (PhD) in Cyprus has a roughly 7 per cent positive impact on wages, contrasted with about 13 per cent for those with a bachelor’s degree.

Countries in which obtaining an upper tertiary education degree has the most impact on wages includes Spain, Slovakia and Sweden.

Contract duration

On average, wages tend to differ between permanent and contracted employees.

This is more evident in Hungary and Lithuania, where contracted workers receive 25 and 15 per cent less in wages respectively.

Cyprus, alongside countries such as Latvia, Denmark, Bulgaria and Belgium, does not exhibit a noticeable difference in salaries amongst the two groups of workers.

Conversely, Greece is the only country in which the study finds that fixed-term workers can actually receive a higher salary packaged than permanent workers.