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Good practice Imported

Austria's Biennial Pay-Transparency Reports (Einkommensbericht, Equal Treatment Act §11a)

Austria · Vienna · See the Austria profile · See the Vienna profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 67% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Austria requires firms above a size threshold (now 150+ employees) to file a confidential gender pay report every two years; a peer-reviewed IZA study using this data found no reduction in the aggregate gender wage gap.

Austria's Biennial Pay-Transparency Reports (Einkommensbericht, Equal Treatment Act §11a)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Works councils under Austria's Equal Treatment Act (Gleichbehandlungsgesetz)
Period
2011–2026 (final cycle before EU Directive transposition)
Keywords
labour law, works councils, wage reporting

Context

Since 2011, Austria's Equal Treatment Act (§11a) has required private employers above a headcount threshold — now 150+ employees — to file a confidential biennial 'Einkommensbericht' comparing women's and men's pay within job groups, reported to the works council rather than a public authority. The next filing falls due 31 March 2026, the final cycle before Austria must transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive by June 2026.

Results

A peer-reviewed IZA study (Böheim & Gust) used the law's staggered size-based rollout as a natural experiment on Austrian social-security records and found no reduction in firms' aggregate gender wage gap, with only a narrow effect of higher starting wages for women newly hired at large covered firms — alongside a lower female employment share at those same firms after implementation. The case is included as a cautionary example: confidential internal reporting without public disclosure or a correction duty produced markedly weaker results than country models with public gap reporting, one reason the EU Directive superseding it adds mandatory public disclosure and joint pay assessments above a 5% unexplained gap.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
HR/payroll teams within each covered employer to compile the biennial income report, Works councils (or posted notices where none exists) to receive and use the report

Conditions for success

  • Employer headcount above the statutory threshold (currently >150 employees)
  • A functioning works council able to interpret and act on the report

Common failure modes

  • Reports are confidential to the works council only, with no public disclosure or correction duty, which the IZA study links to the absence of any aggregate wage-gap effect
  • A lower female employment share at large covered firms was observed post-implementation

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes CERV — Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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