Women’s Economic Empowerment: the case for equal pay for work of equal value
Side event organised by ILO and Governments of Belgium and Brazil, during the sixty-first session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61) which will take place at the UN Headquarters in New York from 13 to 24 March 2017.
The 61th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61) is dedicated to examining women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work. Ensuring decent work for all is at the very core of realising women’s empowerment, articulated in Goal 5 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 2030 Agenda sets the ambitious goal of achieving decent work for all women and men, and equal pay for work of equal value, by 2030. To reach this goal, progress in closing the gender wage gap will need to be urgently accelerated.
There is broad agreement that equal remuneration for work of equal value is important and should be respected. In growing number of countries equal pay issues are being addressed in legislation, in setting minimum wages, through collective bargaining and tripartite cooperation, in workplace policies and practical measures.
The gender pay gap is a key indicator of pay discrimination faced by working women. Women and men still tend to work in different jobs for different reasons. Women and men often predominate in different sectors. Even within the same sector or company women predominate in lower valued and lower paid occupations, as well as in part-time work.
The gender pay gap can be divided into two parts. An “explained” part is accounted for by observable characteristics, such as an individual’s education, experience, economic activity, location, work intensity and occupation. An “unexplained” part is based on what remains after adjusting for the “explained” characteristics and implies discrimination. Recent research suggests that if this “unexplained” wage penalty were removed, the gap would actually be reversed in nearly half of 38 countries studied and women would earn more than men based on work-related characteristics.1 There is evidence that the wage penalty associated with working in a female dominated occupation is much larger where employer discretion is greatest. There is less of a wage penalty where wage setting is guided by formal rules. Where trade union density is high and collective bargaining plays an important role, the gender wage gap is smaller.2 The 2016 Global Wage Report3 also has highlighted that although gender pay gaps are found in all types of enterprises, they are particularly large among enterprises with high average wages. This enhanced understanding of the pay gap should be able to guide more targeted policy responses.
There is also evidence that mothers earn less than women without dependent children and significantly less than fathers with similar employment and household characteristics. Mothers who take time off to look after children may not be able to catch up in pay on their return to work, experiencing a long term impact on careers and pay.4
1 ILO: Global Wage Report 2014/15 – Wages and income inequality, Geneva, 2015, pages 45-50.
2 ILO: Women at work – Trends 2016, Geneva, 2016, page 62.
3 ILO: Global Wage Report 2016/17 - Wage inequality in the workplace, Geneva, 2016.
4 ILO: Women at work, op. cit. page 58.
There is broad agreement that equal remuneration for work of equal value is important and should be respected. In growing number of countries equal pay issues are being addressed in legislation, in setting minimum wages, through collective bargaining and tripartite cooperation, in workplace policies and practical measures.
The gender pay gap is a key indicator of pay discrimination faced by working women. Women and men still tend to work in different jobs for different reasons. Women and men often predominate in different sectors. Even within the same sector or company women predominate in lower valued and lower paid occupations, as well as in part-time work.
The gender pay gap can be divided into two parts. An “explained” part is accounted for by observable characteristics, such as an individual’s education, experience, economic activity, location, work intensity and occupation. An “unexplained” part is based on what remains after adjusting for the “explained” characteristics and implies discrimination. Recent research suggests that if this “unexplained” wage penalty were removed, the gap would actually be reversed in nearly half of 38 countries studied and women would earn more than men based on work-related characteristics.1 There is evidence that the wage penalty associated with working in a female dominated occupation is much larger where employer discretion is greatest. There is less of a wage penalty where wage setting is guided by formal rules. Where trade union density is high and collective bargaining plays an important role, the gender wage gap is smaller.2 The 2016 Global Wage Report3 also has highlighted that although gender pay gaps are found in all types of enterprises, they are particularly large among enterprises with high average wages. This enhanced understanding of the pay gap should be able to guide more targeted policy responses.
There is also evidence that mothers earn less than women without dependent children and significantly less than fathers with similar employment and household characteristics. Mothers who take time off to look after children may not be able to catch up in pay on their return to work, experiencing a long term impact on careers and pay.4
Objective of the side event
The side event organized by the International Labour Organization and the Governments of Belgium and Brazil seeks to:- facilitate the sharing of experiences, trends, lessons learned and good practices, as well as challenges – across countries and regions - on promoting equal pay for work of equal value between women and men and closing the gender pay gap;
- inform the work of the ILO Women at Work Centenary Initiative and efforts of ILO and UN-Women to develop an Equal Pay Coalition in advancing equal pay for work of equal value globally; and
- enrich to the discussions and the formulation of conclusions during the session of the Commission on the Status of Women by highlighting the importance of equal pay for equal value for women’s economic empowerment.
1 ILO: Global Wage Report 2014/15 – Wages and income inequality, Geneva, 2015, pages 45-50.
2 ILO: Women at work – Trends 2016, Geneva, 2016, page 62.
3 ILO: Global Wage Report 2016/17 - Wage inequality in the workplace, Geneva, 2016.
4 ILO: Women at work, op. cit. page 58.