What Gender Pay Gaps Look Like Worldwide

Giving Compass’ Take:

• Our World In Data crunches the numbers behind gender pay gaps across the globe, finding that — even though those gaps have shrunk over time — there is still a wide chasm of economic inequality.

• What can nonprofits due to make sure there are better trends in the future? Hiring women and giving female entrepreneurs more opportunities would be a start, while development organizations can look into technology that frees up women’s time to pursue education and career training.

• Here’s some more advice on narrowing the gender gap, both in America and abroad.

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In this entry we present data and research on economic inequalities between men and women. Here is an overview of some of the points we cover below:

• All over the world men tend to earn more than women.
• Women are often underrepresented in senior positions within firms, while at the same time they tend to be overrepresented in low-paying jobs.
• In many countries men are more likely to own land and control productive assets than women.
• Women often have limited influence over important household decisions, including how their own personal earned income is spent.

Differences in pay capture differences along many possible dimensions, including worker education, experience and occupation. When the pay gap is calculated by comparing all male workers to all female workers – irrespective of differences along these additional dimensions – the result is the ‘raw’ or ‘unadjusted’ pay gap.

Cross-country data on the unadjusted gender pay gap is patchy, but the most complete source in terms of coverage is the United Nation’s International Labour Organization (ILO). The following visualization presents this data. You can add observations by clicking on the option ‘add country’ at the bottom of the chart.

The estimates shown below correspond to differences between average hourly earnings of men and women (expressed as a percentage of average hourly earnings of men), and cover all workers irrespective of whether they work full time or part time.

As we can see: (i) in most countries the gap is positive; and (ii) there are large differences in the size of this gap across countries.

Read the full article about what gender pay gaps look like worldwide at Our World in Data.