While individual characteristics such as education level, length of employment, occupational segregation, skills or experience explain some of the gender pay disparity, ILO says that a large part is due to discrimination based on a person’s sex or gender.
Building further on the United Nations’ commitment to combat all forms of discrimination, including against women and girls, Equal Pay Day represents enduring efforts to achieve equal wages. each other for work of equal value.
Women are hardest hit
Meanwhile, women are one of the subjects most affected by COVID-19 pandemic, including in terms of income security, representation in the hardest-hit sectors, and division of family responsibilities by gender.
In turn, this has negatively impacted their employment and threatened to reverse decades of progress towards gender equality.
As countries emerge from the pandemic, taking action to address obstacles to gender equality is not only appropriate and timely, but critical to a comprehensive, sustainable and resilient recovery.
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Close the gap
Governments, employers and workers’ organizations recognize that closing the gender pay gap is more important than ever.
Over the past few years, an increasing number of governments have proposed transparency and information-sharing measures to address gender pay disparities.
Depending on how they are implemented, pay transparency measures can effectively identify pay disparities and reduce gender inequality in the labor market, according to recent research.
“It is still early days for payment transparency,” speak Manuela Tomei, Director of the ILO’s Equality and Working Conditions Division, notes that countries are pursuing different approaches to promoting this.
She points out that there is “no one-size-fits-all” solution.
“While more time is needed to assess the effectiveness of various measures and practices, it is encouraging that Governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations seek to come up with solutions. innovative methods, such as payment transparency, to solve a difficult problem”.
Surprising truth
- Women are concentrated in lower-paying, lower-skill jobs.
- For every dollar men earn, women earn 77 cents.
- Women are underrepresented in decision-making roles.
- Women perform unpaid work at least 2.5 times higher than men.
- At current rates, it will take 257 years to close the global gender pay gap.
