Poland is doing an almost textbook job of integrating women into the labour market, yet it is now facing a digital wall: unless Polish women close the 16% gap in AI adoption, today’s optimistic path toward equality could be abruptly disrupted by the technological revolution. At the same time, while powerhouses such as Germany and Switzerland remain stuck with structural income gaps exceeding 20%, Poland is rapidly joining the group of frontrunners, with a real chance of reducing the annual income gap between women and men to below 10% before the end of the century. Greater labour-market activation of older women would significantly support this process, while also benefiting the broader economy by preventing experienced and highly valuable female workers from disappearing from the market. More ambitious support for childcare is also needed, especially solutions that would make part-time work or further education and upskilling more widely accessible for women.
- Poland among the leaders in narrowing income disparities – the introduction of an integrated income assessment model reveals diverse country trajectories, with leaders such as Poland achieving relatively low gaps also compared with earlier benchmark periods, while countries such as Germany continue to struggle with high disparities.
- In Poland, the main issue is no longer the wage rate itself (hourly pay is becoming increasingly equal), but rather the structure of the system and labour-market participation.
- Pensions are the key bottleneck: in Poland, as much as one-third of the income gap comes from pensions. This is largely the result of the lower retirement age for women and their shorter contribution period.
- The 60–64 age group is the main challenge: the enormous gap in labour-market participation in this age bracket (25.8% of women vs. 64.2% of men) is the main reason Poland cannot close the gender pay gap as quickly as some other countries.
- Full-time work is a distinctive Polish feature: women in Poland rarely choose part-time work (only around 7%), which is positive for their earnings, but it is still not enough to offset the differences created by earlier retirement.
Poland: Strong Catch-Up, Slowing Momentum
Poland ranks seventh among the 14 countries analysed and has made substantial intergenerational progress, although the pace of equalisation is slowing. According to Allianz Trade, the projected lifetime income gap falls from 24.5% for people born in 1975 to 15.7% for the 2000 cohort and 14.2% for the 2025 cohort. The improvement is significant, but a comparison of the last two groups shows that the momentum of change has weakened.
For the 2000 cohort in Poland, the lifetime income gap is projected at 15.7%, equivalent to around PLN 2 million (EUR 455,000). Most of this gap (59.7%) stems from labour income, 5.6% from investment income, and a relatively high share – 34.8% – from pensions. This means that pension-related disparities weigh far more heavily in Poland than in countries with similar characteristics, such as the Czech Republic, reflecting the fact that career paths translate into old-age income in a different way here.
The main driver of these differences in Poland is labour-market participation. Currently, 69.4% of women are employed or actively seeking work, compared with 80.1% of men. Under current structural trends, this gap is expected to persist. Allianz Trade’s analysis shows that the difference is particularly visible in older age groups: among people aged 60–64, labour-market participation stands at just 25.8% for women, compared with as much as 64.2% for men. Internationally, Poland stands out for having very small gender differences in part-time employment. For example, in the 25–49 age group, 7.2% of women and 2.2% of men work part-time, and by 2100 these figures are projected to fall to 5.2% and 1.1% respectively. A stable share of women in full-time employment helps reduce income gaps.
Hourly pay for women is moving closer to male earnings, but full convergence is not expected. Combined with persistently lower labour-market participation among women, this explains why progress is slowing despite the relatively high share of women working full time. Unlike in most other countries, where women are projected to overtake men in hourly earnings, wage convergence in Poland remains incomplete, and the pension system has a weaker equalising effect. It is also worth remembering that by June 2026 Poland must fully implement the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which will impose new gender pay gap reporting obligations on companies.
On an annual basis, the labour income gap stands at 12.2% in 2026 and is projected to fall below 1% by 2048, before stabilising. Increasing women’s employment, especially among older age groups, remains the most effective tool for accelerating the equalisation of income between women and men.
The gap in investment income is also significant. Lower earnings and career interruptions related to raising children mean less surplus capital that women can invest in assets such as equities or real estate. This results in lower passive income later in life and further widens wealth disparities. It is worth noting that Poland has a very low rate of part-time work among women (only around 7%), which may also be linked to weaker support for family responsibilities than in other countries, for example through limited after-school childcare and educational support services.
Poland’s pension system does not have an equalising effect. In many Western countries, pension systems include built-in mechanisms that partly compensate women for career breaks related to childcare. In Poland, however, the pension system is very tightly linked to contributions paid in under the defined-contribution model. Every break in employment or earlier withdrawal from the labour market is effectively “penalised” with a much lower pension in the future.
That is why, in Allianz Trade’s view, Poland is experiencing a double effect stemming from the different retirement ages of women and men: women retire five years earlier (at 60) than men (at 65). This leads to a shorter contribution period – five fewer years to accumulate pension capital – which, combined with women’s longer life expectancy, means that the same (or smaller) amount of accumulated capital has to be spread across a much greater number of months in retirement, drastically reducing the monthly benefit.
A loss for the economy – Poland is losing the potential of its most experienced female workers. The mass retirement of women immediately after turning 60 is the main reason why the pace of income convergence in Poland is weakening.
Despite Everything, Poland Remains Among the Countries Where the Gender Income Gap Is Shrinking Fastest
| Poland | Germany | Sweden | ||
| Income gap drivers | Leader in change (alongside the US and France) | Country lagging behind | Equality benchmark | |
| Gap forecast (2025 cohort) | Decline below 10% | Gap remains above 20% | Close to zero (-2%) | |
| Main employment model | Dominance of full-time work | Widespread part-time work | Flexibility and full participation | |
| Structural barriers / enablers | Low AI adoption (risk); lack of stronger after-school childcare support | Unfavourable tax system | Advanced childcare system | |
| Pensions | High gap (around 24%) | Very high structural gap | Offset by the public system | |
Key conclusions from the comparison:
- Poland vs. Germany: paradoxically, Poland performs better because its labour market does not promote “forced” part-time work for women. In Germany, structural differences in working hours are the main reason why the gender income gap remains high throughout the life cycle.
- The distance to Sweden: Sweden is the only country that has almost entirely eliminated the gap, reaching a level of -2%, which means near-perfect equality. Poland is catching up, but its barriers are lower capital accumulation (resulting from a shorter contribution period due to earlier retirement, but also from less flexibility in part-time employment caused by weaker systemic support for childcare after school hours) and the gender gap in adopting new technologies.
- A shared challenge: all three countries must confront the AI adoption gap (16% across the EU), which may become the new glass ceiling in the coming decade.
What Depends on Women Themselves? Three Specific Recommendations
Allianz Trade offers three concrete recommendations directly to women in countries such as Poland, where the pension system is under significant pressure:
- Use the “magic” of compound interest: the report emphasises that every złoty invested at the beginning of a career is worth many times more than one set aside after the age of fifty. Early saving is the most effective way to reduce the pension gap caused by career interruptions.
- Become an AI early adopter: because the 16% gap in AI skills across the EU represents a new threat to wages, the report suggests that AI proficiency will be one of the strongest bargaining chips in salary negotiations over the next few years.
- Increase your investment returns by 1.5 percentage points: this is the average annual gain achieved by people with high financial literacy. Over a 30–40 year working life, this seemingly modest 1.5% difference in investment returns could completely eliminate the gap in future pension income between a woman and a man.
Source: managerplus.pl
