UN agency reveals pay disparity for Pakistani women

Islamabad: Despite global efforts, women in Pakistan earn 25 per cent less per hour than men, with the wage gap widening among older and lower-income female workers, reveals the International Labour Organisation.

In a new report, the ILO, which is a UN agency focused on promoting social and economic justice through international labour standards, highlighted key barriers, including discrimination, weak compliance with labour laws, and wage inequalities in Pakistan's informal economy. It also outlined potential solutions, such as gender-neutral job evaluations, minimum wage adjustments and stronger labour law enforcement, and said by prioritising those reforms, Pakistan could foster a fairer, more inclusive labour market and empower women to reach their full economic potential.

The ILO said Pakistan continued to face one of the largest gender employment gaps globally, with women accounting for a small proportion of wage employment.

According to it, the Gender Pay Gap, a measurable indicator of inequality between women and men, in the country is alarmingly high, standing at 25 percent when measured by hourly wages, revealing that on average, women earn Rs750 for every Rs1,000 earned by men during an hour of work. The gap is even more pronounced when measured using monthly wages, with women earning 30 percent less than their male counterparts due to working fewer hours. The disparity is not primarily due to differences in factors such as age, education or job sector, but is largely unexplained, potentially pointing to deep-rooted discrimination in the labour market. Compared to neighbouring countries, Pakistan’s GPG is notably higher—Sri Lanka stands at 22 percent, Nepal at 18 percent and Bangladesh has even reached a negative GPG of -5 percent. Despite the persistently high gap, there has been a slight GPG reduction in recent years. The Gender Pay Gap, which was 33 percent in 2018, has decreased to 25 percent, but the progress remains slow.

The UN agency also underscored significant variation in the Gender Pay Gap across different labour market segments. According to it, in the formal economy, the gap is nearly non-existent, while in the informal and household sectors, it exceeds 40 percent.