Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

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the men has grown only a little; but for the women, there has been a dramatic
rise in working hours. Women in the private sector did an average working
week of as many as 46.8 hours, which is greater than the corresponding figure
for men in Lithuania and greater than for any other women's group under
comparison in the Baltic countries.
In Lithuania, as in Latvia, 39 % of the working people stated that overtime
was part of their normal working week. Overtime is done quite commonly, but
often no separate compensation is received for it, in money any more than in
days off. Almost three-quarters of the women who work overtime do not receive
compensation of any kind for it. The men's situation is better, but not
good. Of those men who do overtime, slightly over half receive no separate
compensation for it. Around one-quarter of all working people in Lithuania do
unpaid overtime during a normal working week; this proportion is greater than
in the other countries compared.
Taken as a whole, the living standard of Lithuania's working people can be
estimated to have remained more or less the same during the last few years.
Emerging as a positive feature is the salary difference between the genders,
which is the smallest in the Baltic countries. When including the total of all
the net earnings received from one or more jobs, the gap between men's and
women's salaries has definitely narrowed in recent years, being 17 % at present.
In the preceding survey, the difference was 24 %. This reduced salary
difference is largely because the average salaries in the public sector have
clearly grown more than in the private sector. Since a majority of the female
workers are in the public sector, this positive salary development in the sector
has contributed directly to the narrowing of the gap between the salaries of
male and female workers.
The black economy has become more widespread in recent years, among both
men and women. This may be linked to the increased incidence of secondary
jobs. In Lithuania, as also in Estonia and Latvia, 15 % of the wage earners said
that they had another job in addition to their main one. The proportion doing a
second job in Lithuania is now almost double that observed in the previous
study. The change has concerned men as much as women. One explanatory
factor is that delays in salary payment have become more common. It is probable
that for many, doing a secondary job is essential to their livelihood when