OGBL: "Luxembourg women will work for free until the end of the year"

In Luxembourg, as in many other European countries, gender pay inequality is no longer an abstract statistic. According to the official gap of 13.9%, women from 17 November "work for free" until the end of the year. But behind this symbolic boundary lies a systemic and invisible discrimination that permeates the entire labour and social biography of women.

Injustice is not limited to the payroll. It penetrates into domestic work, care of children and relatives, organisation of everyday life, mental burden. Women are twice as likely as men to engage in unpaid work - according to the OECD. They take on planning, care, support - everything that is rarely included in official statistics but keeps society afloat.

In Luxembourg today, 36 per cent of women work part-time, compared to less than 8 per cent of men. Often not by choice, but because they have to take care of the home, children and elderly relatives. Every "under-worked" hour is a minus to pension, to career advancement, to financial independence. The result is a pension gap of 40 per cent between men and women.

And it is at such a moment that the country is discussing reforms that directly affect the balance between work and life: overhauling the pension system, increasing working hours in commerce, changes in labour legislation. All of this, the OGBL union emphasises, only exacerbates the inequalities that already exist - especially if you don't take into account who is paid "out of sight" and how much.

OGBL's Equality Department is launching a survey on 17 November on mental workload and employment in care - two aspects that rarely make it into reports but define the reality of millions of women.

Both women and men are invited to take part in the survey - because the issue of recognition of this work concerns the whole structure of society, not just the "women's issue".