Towards pay equity
The guide Towards pay equity: a comprehensive response to the gender pay gap, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO), proposes a new theory of change and intervention model to delivering real change in women’s pay and working lives.
Based on coordinated actions and deliberate policies, the guide combines data, legal analysis, policy guidance and “snapshots of practice” from countries around the world, emphasising the crucial role that laws and institutions, wage policies, pay transparency, objective job evaluation, social dialogue, labour inspection, social protection, care policies and actions play in tackling gender stereotypes and reducing the gender pay gap.
The guide is intended primarily as a tool for governments, employers’ organisations and workers’ organisations, but it also aims to speak to civil society, the private sector and academia.
According to the guide, despite decades of commitments, the gender pay gap remains a stark reality in today’s world of work, and can only be closed through coordinated action and deliberate policies. Moreover, closing the gender pay gap has become even more urgent as the world of work undergoes rapid and substantial transformations.
While progress over the last decades has been slow and incremental, the issue is gradually gaining more visibility and attention at the global, regional and national levels.
Building on the 2013 ILO Equal Pay Guide, the publication incorporates the latest insights on achieving equal pay for work of equal value. In response to growing attention from governments, employers’ and workers’ organisations to the need for a comprehensive and integrated approach, the guide highlights recent developments in measurement, legislation and the use of modern technology, and explores the growing role of measures such as pay transparency and wage policies in promoting alignment with ILO living wage principles.
The guide emphasises that the gender pay gap is complex and deeply rooted in labour market structures, and further sustained by norms and stereotypes embedded in society. It highlights key areas of evolution, such as improved measurement methods and tools; greater recognition of the role of wage policies, social protection and care policies; and a deeper understanding of discrimination.
According to the guide, closing the gender pay gap requires governments, employers, workers’ organisations and other stakeholders to act with renewed commitment by investing in data and transparency, strengthening institutions (especially care systems), fostering inclusive dialogue and joining the Equal Pay International Coalition – launched in 2017 and coordinated by the ILO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UN Women to accelerate efforts to close gender pay gaps.