Gender pay gap: comparative analysis of estonia and lithuania

Gender Pay Gap: Comparative Analysis of Estonia and Lithuania The aim of this paper is to answer the question: why gender pay gap is much smaller in Lithuania compared with Estonia. Method of Comparative analysis was used to find out main reasons influencing the gap among the countries. Four perspectives: economical, sociological, institutional, organizational were used as a most common explanations why countries lack of gender equality and why the difference exists. To begin with, comparative analysis of Lithuania and Estonia has shown that not all theoretical perspectives can explain differences of gender pay gap among Estonia and Lithuania. Most suitable perspective is economical, since data shows differences in percentage of low wage earners, part time workers. Second best explanation was institutional perspective. After the analysis of gender equality policies and family policies it is clear that Estonia has better family benefits and child allowances than Lithuania, which creates opportunity to stay at home longer, which leads to theory of Human capital. Sociological and organizational perspectives did not answer the question due to many similarities amongst countries. Both countries perceives women as a social group kind of the same. Also, organizational perspective depicts situation in boards of largest entities of both countries. Main finding is that there is a slightly more women in Lithuanian entities’ boards that Estonian. To conclude with, this thesis questions the Gender pay gap in two post-soviet countries and do present key findings to help to understand situation there. However, to be able fully answer the question of gender pay gap among these countries, deeper analysis would be needed, since big percentage of Gender pay gap stays unexplained