Mercedes Garrido has pledged to reduce the wage gap to less than 8% in four years

The Feminist Classrooms brought their third edition to a close with the final day in Formentera, which was attended by the Minister of the Presidency, Public Function and Equality, Mercedes Garrido, the Secretary of State for Equality and against gender violence, Ángela Rodríguez, and the president of the Consell Insular de Formentera, Ana Juan.

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The economy for equality was this year’s topic of debate at the conference, which attracted nearly 130 registered participants, in addition to those who followed the event online. Specifically, the impact of the labour reform on women, sexist and sexual violence, women’s participation in the economy, equality in the media and the wage gap were discussed.

According to Garrido, these are areas that allow us to conclude that “women continue to suffer inequalities in all areas of life that we must continue to combat and confront”, which is why she has promised to “study all the ideas and conclusions that we draw from these fabulous classrooms in order to continue applying policies that improve the lives of all women”.

The Councillor explained that the Government “is focused on favouring this greater presence of women in the economy as a lever for transformation towards real equality”, which is why it is promoting “policies that favour quality employment and better salaries, which will also favour better pensions; increasing the presence of women in management positions; helping women to create their own business projects; helping women to live freely and without fear, and deploying the Plan for Conciliation and Joint Responsibility”.

Precisely, this plan is now in its first year, with which the Government has already financed summer, Christmas and Easter schools, has provided co-responsibility agents in different municipalities, has subsidised public morning schools and now, for the first time, the school year will begin with free education for children aged 2 to 3 years old.

From now on, the councillor said that “we are preparing the fourth edition of the classrooms, which will help us to continue advancing on the road to equality for all women, based on institutional, social and political unity, as we have done up to now”.

On her part, the Secretary of State for the fight against gender violence, Ángela Rodríguez, stressed that “at last it has been accepted that feminism can also be used to transform a country’s economy, hence the wisdom of the theme of the debate in this year’s edition of the classrooms”. In this sense, Rodríguez has demanded the right to be cared for, but also the right to care with dignity and co-responsibility, given that the majority of care continues to fall to women”.

The president of the Consell Insular de Formentera, Ana Juan, assured that “it is a priority that the demands of the feminist movement be translated into public policies”. In fact, she said that the Council is developing the first Equality Plan for the institution.

Wage gap

Prior to the closing ceremony, there was a presentation of good practices in the fight against the pay gap by public administrations, led by Eva Istúriz García, Director of the Instituto Navarro para la Igualdad, Maria Such Palomares, Director General of the Instituto Valenciano de las Mujeres and Sara Fernández Vázquez, Head of the Statistical Production Service of IBESTAT.

Councillor Garrido was in charge of moderating this round table debate, in which she recalled that according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, the Balearic Islands have, on average, the second lowest wage gap in Spain, at 13%, behind only the Canary Islands. Even so, Garrido said that “we are not satisfied and we intend to continue reducing this gap to below 8% over the next four years, as set out in the Equality Plan in the workplace approved this year.

“Collective bargaining and the progressive incorporation of equality aspects in agreements must be the instruments that lead us to this reduction in the wage gap”, concluded the Minister.