Women in Work 2024

Insight
4 minute read
25 Mar 2024

While women’s participation in labour markets is increasing, they continue to face pay disparities compared to men. The gender pay gap widened between 2021 and 2022 in 20 of the 33 OECD countries. This includes the UK, which experienced the largest annual fall on our Index of any OECD country, dropping four places from 13th to 17th place.

The UK’s persistently high gender pay gap prompted us to take a closer look at the factors driving gender pay disparities. We conduct analysis to explore whether gender disparities in pay in the UK remain once accounting for differences in personal and work-related characteristics other than gender that impact pay (such as qualifications or occupational grade). We find that even after accounting for a range of these pay-determining factors, the majority of the pay differential between genders persists. We call these pay differentials ‘pay penalties’. The presence of these pay penalties suggests that biases and structural inequalities in the workplace play a significant role in driving gender pay disparities. Additionally, we find that disparities in pay are accentuated when the intersection of gender with income, ethnicity and age is considered.

13.5%

Average gender pay gap across the OECD (difference in median earnings between women and men)

Our global results: Luxembourg tops the Index

Luxembourg ranks first on our Index, followed by Iceland and Slovenia. Luxembourg’s strong performance was driven by an improvement across all five indicators on the Index between 2021 and 2022. Luxembourg is a leader across the OECD on the gender pay gap, with a negative gap of -0.2%, meaning average earnings are higher for women than men.

Australia experienced the largest annual improvement in rankings, rising seven places from 17th place in 2021 to 10th place in 2022. Conversely, the UK experienced the largest fall in rankings since last year, dropping by four places from 13th in 2021 to 17th place in 2022.

You can explore our latest Index results and previous years’ results in the interactive data tool below.