International Equal Pay Day

Achieving equal pay is an important milestone for human rights & gender equality. Yet, despite global progress, there isn't a single country or a sector that has closed the gender pay gap. On average, women are paid about 20% less than men. In some regions, as well as for women of colour, immigrant women & women with children, the difference is even greater. On Wednesday's Equal Pay Day, join UN Women in demanding equal pay for work of equal value.

Unequal pay is a stubborn and universal problem. In spite of significant progress in women’s education and higher female labour market participation rates in many countries, closing the gender pay gap has been too slow. At this pace , it will take 257 years to achieve economic gender parity . Women workers’ average pay is generally lower than men’s in all countries and for all levels of education , and age groups. Women in male-dominated industries may earn more than those in female-dominated industries, but the gender pay gap persists across all sectors. While gender pay gap estimates can vary substantially across regions and even within countries, higher income countries tend to have lower levels of wage inequality compared to low and middle-income countries. However, estimates of the gender pay gap understate the real extent of the issue, particularly in developing countries, because of a lack of information about informal economies , which are disproportionately made up...