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Good practice Imported

Germany's Entgelttransparenzgesetz (Wage Transparency Act, 2017)

Germany · Berlin · See the Germany profile · See the Berlin profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 72% 48/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Germany's 2017 Entgelttransparenzgesetz lets employees request gender pay comparisons. A 2025 IAB/German Journal of HRM study found it narrowed the gender wage gap only in firms with works councils and collective agreements, and widened it elsewhere.

reduced
Wage-gap effect, firms with works council + CBA (200-499 employees)
increased
Wage-gap effect, firms without works council/CBA

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Bundestag / Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (Federal Ministry for Family Affairs)
Period
2017-present
Region (NUTS)
DE30
Keywords
labour market regulation, wage transparency, gender equality, employment law

Context

Germany's Entgelttransparenzgesetz (Wage Transparency Act), in force since 2017, gives employees at establishments with more than 200 employees a statutory right to request comparator pay information by gender, and requires firms with more than 500 employees to report on equality measures.

Results

A 2025 study applying a difference-in-discontinuity design around the law's two legal thresholds (approximately 200 and 500 employees) found the law reduced the raw gender wage gap only in medium-sized establishments (200-499 employees) that already had a works council and were covered by a collective bargaining agreement.

Conclusions

In establishments without these institutions, the study found the opposite: the unexplained gender wage gap increased after the law took effect. The authors conclude that pre-existing worker-representation structures, not the individual pay-transparency right itself, were the decisive factor -- a cautionary finding for jurisdictions considering similar individual-request rights without matching institutional support.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — No published enforcement-cost figure.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — In force since 2017.
Staffing & skills
Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend

Conditions for success

  • works council and collective-bargaining coverage alongside the individual pay-transparency right

Common failure modes

  • gender wage gap widened in establishments lacking works councils or collective agreements

Where it fits

Governance type
national government
Scale
national
Income level
high-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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

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