The pay gap between men and women is closing and young women are actually overtaking men in some sectors, the national statistics office CBS said on Wednesday.

In 2014, female civil servants earned on average 5% less than a man in a comparable position, the CBS said. In 2008 the pay gap was 7%. In the private sector, the pay gap has also shrunk by two percentage points, from 9% to 7%.

However, young women are in a different position. Twenty to 30-year-olds earn between 5% and 15% more than their male colleagues.

‘This is because more women than men study for a degree,’ CBS chief economist Peter Hein van Mulligen is quoted as saying by broadcaster NOS. ‘They are also more likely to graduate and to take less time over their degree, giving them more time to establish a career.’

Men catch up at around the age of 30 – or 36 in the case of the civil service. ‘This is the age when women start working less while men may actually increase their working hours,’ said Van Mulligen. ‘It is also around this age when women have children.’

Just 25% of women in the Netherlands work full time.