Women aged 65 or over in the EU received pensions that were 24.5% lower on average than men in 2024.
The biggest average pension gaps were recorded in Malta (40.3%), the Netherlands (36.3%) and Austria (35.6), Eurostat informed on Wednesday.
The smallest gaps were in Estonia (5.6%), Slovakia (8.4%) and Hungary (9.6%).
Alongside averages, the data also compares pensions using the median — the middle value in a range — which is less affected by a small number of very high or very low pensions.
By that measure, the median pension for women in the EU was 24.9% lower than for men.
The largest median gaps were recorded in Luxembourg (43.3%), Spain (41.1%) and the Netherlands (39.6%), while the smallest were in Estonia (-0.3%), Hungary (0.4%) and Denmark (2.7%).
Where average and median figures diverge
The widest differences between the average and median pension gaps were recorded in Denmark, where the average gap was 12.9 percentage points higher than the median gap.
Belgium followed at 11.0 percentage points, and Hungary at 9.2 percentage points.
In several countries the median gap was larger than the average gap, including Spain, where the median gap was 11.9 percentage points higher than the average, and Luxembourg (10.6 percentage points) and Portugal (6.5 percentage points).
