"Policy implications
• Research shows that performance-related pay is becoming increasingly prevalent across the EU and that it contributes to pay inequalities between men and women. Men are more likely to receive performancerelated pay, and in higher amounts, because it tends to be available in larger firms, at the higher end of the wage distribution, for full-time rather than part-time work, and in certain sectors and occupations. • This growing problem has received little attention by policymakers, including at the EU level. The current EU equal pay legal framework, as well as the proposed Directive on pay transparency, may be of some, albeit limited assistance in addressing gender inequalities arising from performance-related pay. Gaps in legal and policy frameworks may therefore leave the gendered effects of such pay schemes largely unchallenged.
• Given that the use of performance-related pay is likely to increase further, this issue should not be ignored. Social partners and policymakers at the European and national levels should seek to develop effective solutions, including data collection, research and awareness-raising on the causes of gender differences in performancerelated pay; legal provisions and collective agreements that require that such pay schemes are transparent and gender-sensitive; and exchange of good practices between Member States.
• All this should be pursued alongside increased efforts to tackle the causes of the gender pay gap, which underpin the gendered effects of performance-related pay, such as vertical and horizontal occupational segregation, or factors underlying the involvement of women in parttime and atypical work."

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