EDITORIAL: While most women in this country put in long hours of unpaid work in homes or agriculture related activities those formally employed get paid a lot less than their male counterparts.
According to a recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Pakistan has one of the largest gender pay gaps (GPG) with women earning significantly less than men across most sectors.
The report highlights an unpleasant reality that the GPG, an indicator of gender inequality, at an estimated 25 percent for this country, is higher than that of other South Asian nations. In Sri Lanka, for instance, based on hourly wages it stands at 22 percent, in Nepal at 18 percent.
In the case of Bangladesh, however, the gap actually gets slightly reversed by -5 percent. This, apparently, is reflective of the fact that in Bangladesh’s exports-oriented garment sector, majority of workers are female. It’s been generally seen that in occupations where there are more women than men, they receive better wages.
Furthermore points out the report the gender pay gap varies significantly across different segments of the labour market. In the formal sector, it is almost zero since wages are about equal where employment laws are enforced.
As a matter of fact, in our public sector – by far the largest employer – wage disparities are relatively low due to strict implementation of labour regulations.
But there is a whopping pay gap of over 40 percent in the informal and household sectors, where jobs already are relatively low-paying. Too many women and girls are engaged in undervalued work because of lack of access to education or skill enhancement opportunities.
As it is, higher the level of education and/or professional expertise, lower/ blurred is the GPG. As per findings of a survey the pay gap between engineers of either gender is 10 percent; between medical practitioners it is five percent; and among product and clothes designers it climbs to 18 percent. There is no denying that even in advanced Western societies there exists an undercurrent of gender discrimination resulting in women earning less than men for doing work of equal value. Nonetheless, too many women in those countries as well are concentrated in rather low paying sectors.
The present report goes on to note that the majority of the pay gap in Pakistan is not due to differences in skills, education or labour market characteristics, but leaves it unexplained.
One obvious explanation is the ubiquitous gender bias; and the other that employers in the informal sector take advantage of lax application of labour laws to pay female workers a lot less than they would to men for a job requiring same skill sets and work hours.
Pakistan having ratified the ILO’s Equal Remuneration Convention of 1951 more than two decades ago, must ensure that men and women across formal and informal sectors receive equal pay for work of equal value.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
