A long time has passed since the incorporation of women into the labor market. Even though during all these decades women have claimed to have the same rights as men, there is still a significant gap. This difference is still noticeable in today's society and continues to be one of the main axes of inequality in our country. This matter is the pay gap. 

The pay gap is an indicator that measures the difference between the remuneration received by men and women in the same position or job. In addition to this, there are other barriers that women encounter throughout their professional careers. For instance, a lower presence in managerial positions, shorter working hours (as a result of maternity), the unequal distribution of tasks related to family and home care, and temporary contracts. These are some of the conclusions drawn from most of the companies' analyses that make up the Ibex 35 in 2019.

Within European Union (EU) countries, women earn around 15% less per hour than men in the same role. However, this figure is not the same in all EU countries. Specifically, in Spain, the gender gap is around 13.9%. 

In the technology sector, these figures seem to be somewhat better. However, there is still significant evidence of this reality. According to estimates made by the National Statistics Institute (INE) in 2017 (this is the most recent data), the wage gap between men and women stood at around 8.9% in the ICT sector. It is also striking that only 15% of technology positions in Spain are occupied by women. This matter is also related to the fact that the number of women studying technology careers is even lower. According to the latest statistics published by the Ministry of Education and FP, the percentage of female graduates in computer science did not reach 10% during the 2018-2019 academic year. These numbers hinder a broad female presence in the sector. Gender prejudices and stereotypes are largely to blame for this fact. Here is where the job of bringing girls closer to the world of STEM is fundamental, thus becoming a challenge for companies in the sector, which need to feminize their workforces to generate more balanced environments in terms of diversity.

In our company, we have an Equality Plan to continue to break down the barriers and obstacles that women encounter throughout their working lives. In this plan, and returning to the area of salaries, the data concerning the salary difference is not significant. This fact is the result of the comparison for similar positions with equal responsibility. In this regard, men are paid between 2 and 5% more. Taking into account that, in all these cases, men have more seniority. This factor has a positive effect on pay, irrespective of the specific position or level of responsibility.

Another of the challenges of our Equality Plan, as well as our Corporate Social Responsibility policies, is to increase the visibility of women at all levels of responsibility. In particular, we would like to place special emphasis on the company's senior management. 

This objective is undoubtedly a substantial challenge. Even in female-dominated sectors, women are under-represented in positions of responsibility. Nevertheless, the figures have improved considerably in recent years. This fact is reflected in the data derived from the report "Women In Business", produced by the consultancy firm Grant Thornton. According to this report, in Spain, the number of women in management positions increased by four points from 2019 to 2020, reaching 34%. This rate is the highest figure in the last 16 years and places our country in the top 10 worldwide in terms of equality.

"At Emergya, we have three women on the management committee, which consists of a total of 11 people. We value this figure as positive given that the number of women in the company is also 27% compared to men. In other areas, such as the leadership of areas or projects, the reality is even better, reaching 50%. However, this is no reason for complacency. We have a lot of work ahead of us to continue this evolution. A task that we know we must do looking inwards, but also outwards. Helping women to feel attracted to our sector, to feel safe and valued, and to see serious possibilities for growth in it", explains Pilar Choza, head of HR and Communication at Emergya.

Looking at the international scene, the Covid'19 crisis has not helped to improve the data. On the contrary, the pandemic has made the situation much worse. Between April and September last year, according to data from the report "Tackling the gender pay gap in the European Union", the gender pay gap increased by 0.4%. This result represents a significant setback in the levels of equality achieved in the last 20 years.

From our sphere of action, we seek to encourage our professionals to look at the transformation and digital change of society as a reference for them. For us, the key to achieving this lies in a clear commitment to innovation and equality. We hope that this combination will lead us to our dream goal: zero difference.

That is why, on this 22-F, we want to join the awareness-raising campaign promoted by the Ministry of Equality and the Women's Institute. In this way, we are doing our bit to make these latent differences in society disappear for good and make it tangible that the difference between women and men is zero.