The French Gender Equality Index

Since 2019, all companies in France with more than 250 employees and, since 2020, all companies with more than 50 employees must calculate and publish their Professional Gender Equality Index (overall score out of 100), each year on March 1.

Created by the law of September 5, 2018 for the freedom to choose one’s professional future, the Professional Equality Index allows companies to measure the pay gaps between women and men and highlights the points for progress on which to act when these disparities are unjustified. It is made up of 5 main indicators, covering various aspects that assess the gender pay gap within the company. 

For a practical example here are the details of the scores obtained by Meilleurs Agents in 2022: 83/100 

• The gender pay gap: 38/40 
• The gap in the distribution of individual increases: 05/20 
• The individual promotion distribution gap: 15/15 
• The number of female employees given raises upon return from maternity leave: 15/15 
• The parity among the top 10 highest paid: 10/10

In accordance with legal provisions, when the score obtained on the professional equality index is less than 85, the employer must set and publish targets for progress on each of the targets for each of the indicators relating to the gender pay gap between women and men. 

This year, 61% of companies with more than 50 employees published their score, as they did last year at the same time. The average score is up one point from 2021 to 86/100, which is a positive point.

Two of the five indicators on which the Index is based are up from 2021:

• “return from leave”: 2,354 (11%) scored 0 and are therefore in violation of the 2006 law
• Parity in the top 10 pay packages: 27% of companies respect parity or near parity (with a score of 10/10) and 5 out of 10 companies with more than 1,000 employees have less than 2 women in their top 10 pay packages.

The “Rixain Law” published in the Official Journal on December 26, 2021, aiming to accelerate economic and professional equality between women and men, introduces new obligations for companies, in particular by imposing a quota of 30% and then 40% of women among executives and members of management bodies.

However, only 2% of companies have obtained the maximum score of 100/100, which means that all other companies still have to make efforts to advance equality between women and men.

Source: Meilleurs Agents and Ministère du Travail