ISLAMABAD: Women in the healthcare sector face a larger gender pay gap than in other fields, earning 24 per cent less than men, according to a joint report prepared by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The report found a raw gender pay gap of 20 percentage points, but it jumped to 24 percentage points after accounting for factors such as age, education and working time.

Much of the wage gap is unexplained, perhaps due to discrimination against women, even though they account for 67pc of health and care workers worldwide.

The study found that wages tend to be lower overall in the health and care sector than other sectors. This is consistent with the finding that wages often are lower in sectors where women are predominant.

The report, titled ‘The gender pay gap in the health and care sector: a global analysis in the time of Covid-19’, finds that even with the Covid-19 pandemic and the crucial role played by health and care workers, there were only marginal improvements in pay equality between 2019 and 2020.

It also finds a wide variation in gender pay gaps in different countries, suggesting that pay gaps in the sector are not inevitable and that more can be done to close these gaps.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2022