According to a new study by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN), when it comes to bringing in the money, women are far behind men in Bulgaria.

Not like that is a surprise. In fact, in a separate event, the Bulgarian office of the European Commission's Directorate General Communication is to hold a seminar on March 6 2009 on the role of Bulgaria women in society.

A press release presenting the findings of BAN's Economics Institute, issued on March 5, said that women in Bulgaria do not receive pay checks at family companies, that men earn more even in traditionally "female" spheres, and that Bulgarian females contribute only 46 per cent to the family budget.

The average Bulgarian woman contributes eight per cent less to household finances; while her sources of income amounts to 74 per cent of what a man usually gets, her salary is 87 per cent of his. This information applies to households in which a male and female couple have offspring, BAN said in the press release.

Women in Bulgaria were also found to be discounted as regards their age when applying for a job, along with level of salary as concerns their educational background and professional responsibilities.

Among skilled workers (ie, professionals), the difference in contribution to the household income is even greater – women were found to contribute 37 per cent, in comparison with men's 67 per cent.

Kapka Stoyanova, the author of the BAN study, said that the gender difference showed that Bulgarian women had "insurmountable" impediments not only as concerned career development, but also in securing higher salaries.

The study also found that females hold 2.5 times fewer leadership positions at their place of work, and receive undeniably lower salaries than men, despite the women having higher levels of education and equal professional competencies.

And when it comes to ageism, young mothers and women between the ages of 55 and 64 were shown to be greatly disfavoured as potential employees.

The overall ratio of female to male workers is 43:57. The only place where women outnumber men is in governmental jobs, because of "the security and a stable salary", Stoyanova said.

Yet even in sectors that were traditionally considered "female", male employees outnumber females, with a ratio of 58 to 42 – the same ratio found in traditionally "male" sectors like manufacturing and production.

In the educational sphere, women receive 85 per cent of the average male salary; in healthcare, they receive 73 per cent.

Only in the construction and real estate and related services did women's contribution to the family budget outrank men's – barely – at a ratio of 52:48. However, women only comprise 15 per cent of employees in the construction sector, and 30 per cent in the real estate field.

And if discrimination at the workplace was not hard enough to swallow, Bulgarian women are often discriminated against by their own husbands: women at own family firms often receive no pay for their work as accountants, distributors, managers and more.

Stoyanova said that Bulgaria needed changes to its laws as concerns family members in the workplace; women should also be classified as equal partners to their male counterparts in family firms, she said.

Another way of looking at difference in contribution to household income was to evaluate how much time a woman spent in managing the home and taking care of the children. As such, a wife's contribution of paid and unpaid work would be about equal with the rest of Europe, where the gender difference was about 10 per cent, Stoyanova said.

According to information from the European Commission published on March 3, women around Europe earn, on average, 17.4 per cent less than their male counterparts.