Pay and income
Pay and income are central to employment relations and quality of life. The issue has received even more attention at EU level due to crisis-inflicted developments in the economy and in society as a whole.
Find the latest content on this topic below.
Minimum wages in 2026: Annual review
Minimum wage setting across the EU has become an increasingly dynamic and closely watched policy area, shaped by the transposition of the EU Minimum Wage Directive and a decade of sustained real-terms growth in statutory rates. This report examines the wage-setting discussions that took place across Member States and Norway in 2025, focusing on the countries with and without a national minimum wage, the interplay between minimum wages and collective bargaining in low-paid sectors, and the growing role of indicative reference values in shaping national decisions.National minimum wages in the EU: policy-driven growth, continued convergence and increased proximity to negotiated wages
Over the past year, national minimum wages continued to rise substantially across the EU, especially in central and eastern European countries, continuing the narrowing of regional disparities. The EU Minimum Wage Directive has emerged as a significant driver of minimum wage hikes in many countries, exceeding inflation levels and increasing faster than collectively agreed wage floors in many low-paid sectors.Low-paid jobs: Employment trends and impact of minimum wage policies
This report examines the long-term effects of minimum wage policies on employment structures across the EU-27 over the past two decades. It systematically analyses how changes in sectoral and occupational employment patterns are linked to these policies.Eurofound reports on various aspects of pay and income in light of changing economic circumstances across Europe.
The European Pillar of Social Rights sets out the EU’s commitments on wages: the right of workers to fair wages that provide for a decent standard of living; ensuring adequate minimum wages; preventing in-work poverty.
Following a proposal by the European Commission in October 2020, the European Parliament and Council of the EU adopted a new Directive on adequate minimum wages on 19 October 2022. It aims to reduce in-work poverty, promote collective bargaining on wages and increase access to minimum wage protection.
On 30 January 2023, the Council adopted a Recommendation on adequate minimum income ensuring active inclusion.
To strengthen the principle of equal pay for work of equal value between men and women, the Council adopted a new Directive on pay transparency on 24 April 2023. The directive aims to tackle pay discrimination and help close the gender pay gap in the EU.
European Commission: The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Planopens in new tab
EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages in the European Unionopens in new tab
European Commission: Council adopts recommendation on adequate minimum incomeopens in new tab
Council of the European Union: Pay transparency in the EUopens in new tab
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
26 June 2024
Minimum wages in 2024: Annual review
This 2024 annual review of minimum wages provides a synopsis of minimum wage setting during 2023 in the EU27 and Norway. It reports in detail on the processes and outcomes of setting the minimum wage rates for 2024 and beyond. It investigates the extent to which minimum wage earners were affected by the cost-of-living crisis and shows how minimum wage workers are distributed across households over the entire income distribution. The report also addresses the criteria that minimum wage setters considered when setting the new rates for 2024 and to what extent these criteria already include the minimum elements mentioned in Article 5 of the EU Minimum Wage Directive. It provides some initial insights into Member States’ activities around the transposition of the directive, which was a moving target at the time of drafting the report. Finally, an overview of the latest minimum wage research related to the EU27 and Norway completes this report.
5 September 2023
Tackling rising inflation in sectoral collective wage bargaining
After a long period of price stability, inflation has made a remarkable comeback in the EU. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis spurred by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the disruption of the international supply chain, among other factors, have driven up the prices of commodities and goods. While nominal wages picked up in 2021 and 2022, real wage growth has remained below inflation, affecting mainly low-income groups. Even though EU institutions expect inflation to slowly decline by 2025, many collective bargaining rounds have barely been able to keep up with the rapid increase in prices in 2022. Consequently, trade unions’ demands for compensation and pay increases in collectively agreed wages put pressure on some sectors. Updating minimum wages (in line with the directive on adequate minimum wages) plays a key role in protecting the purchasing power of low wages. With wages not keeping up with inflation rates, tensions may resurface in social dialogue and collective bargaining over the coming years.
18 June 2021
Gender pay transparency: Advancing the cause through a truly European proposal
7 September 2022
Access to essential services for people on low incomes: Energy, public transport and digital communications
In collecting information on essential services, the European Commission requested Eurofound to provide input on certain aspects of existing and planned measures in the Member States to improve access to essential services in reference to Principle 20 of the European Pillar of Social Rights. For this exercise, the scope was on energy services, public transport, and digital communications, and the focus on people at risk of poverty or social exclusion (in most cases in practice, people on low incomes). This paper provides an overview of the measures in the Member States based mainly on the inputs from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents, collected in February–March 2022. The paper reviews the measures across the entire EU by clustering the major types or targets of the measures to make essential services accessible, and by succinctly listing main country-level examples. It provides information for understanding the diversity and similarities of the measures applied and suggests pointers on areas where policy action could be developed.
24 January 2023
Economic and social inequalities in Europe in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic had varying impacts on social groups, depending on existing disadvantages, and it was widely believed that it triggered a rise in inequalities across different areas of life. Using indicators from the EU’s Multidimensional Inequality Monitoring Framework (MIMF), this report shows how inequality in the spheres of income, health, employment and education changed between 2010 and 2020. It also examines the main drivers of this change during the pandemic and explores the relationships between government policies in several domains and inequality.
30 March 2021
Wealth distribution and social mobility
This report explores the distribution of household wealth in the EU Member States and analyses the role of wealth in social mobility. Using data from three datasets (the Household Finance and Consumption Survey, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and the Luxembourg Wealth Study), it focuses on wealth per household member. Wealth composition is compared across social groups and countries, and the role of housing assets in wealth distribution and negative wealth is assessed. The findings show that parental background, including parental wealth, has an impact on educational and wealth mobility. In order to promote equality of opportunities in terms of access to education and housing, the impact of wealth inequalities, including differences in parental wealth, should be counterbalanced. The report also suggests that regularising wealth declaration in the EU could be a way of promoting social justice by minimising hidden wealth and combating tax evasion.
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Marianna Baggio
Research officerMarianna Baggio is a research officer in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound, working on aspects of the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), as well as on the topics of gender pay transparency and informal care. Prior to joining Eurofound, she served as a policy analyst at the Competence Centre for Behavioural Insights of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. She has worked as a postdoc at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan) and the University of Trento. She also brings extensive experience from a previous role as corporate social responsibility (CSR) officer in South Africa. Marianna holds a PhD in Economics and Management from the University of Trento, specialising in behavioural economics.
Carlos Vacas‑Soriano
Senior research managerCarlos Vacas Soriano is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He works on topics related to wage and income inequalities, minimum wages, low pay, job quality, temporary employment and segmentation, and job quality. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2010, he worked as a macroeconomic analyst for the European Commission and as a researcher in European labour markets at the Spanish Central Bank. He holds an MA in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and a PhD in Labour Economics from the University of Salamanca (Doctor Europaeus).
Christine Aumayr-Pintar
Senior research managerChristine Aumayr-Pintar is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She coordinates Eurofound’s research on social dialogue and industrial relations and oversees the Network of Eurofound Correspondents (NEC). Her primary research expertise – approached from a comparative EU-wide standpoint – centres on minimum wages, collectively negotiated pay and gender pay transparency. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2009 she was a labour markets and regional economics researcher at Joanneum Research in Austria. She earned a Master's degree in Economics and a PhD in Social Science/Economics having studied economics in Graz, Vienna and Jönköping.
This section provides access to all content that has been published on the topic.
