Equal pay for work of equal value

Johannesburg, 26 April : As the world celebrate International Workers Day on May 1 , the SADC Gender Protocol Alliance joins UN Women in calling for accelerated action in closing the gender pay gap.

Worldwide, women only make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. As a result, there’s a lifetime of income inequality between men and women and more women are retiring into poverty.

This stubborn inequality in the average wages between men and women persists in all countries and across all sectors, because women’s work is under-valued and women tend to be concentrated in different jobs than men. Even though the work itself may require equal or more effort and skills, it’s valued and remunerated less. For women of colour, immigrant women and mothers, the gap widens. The so-called “motherhood penalty” pushes women into informal economy, casual and part-time work, and tends to be larger in developing countries than in developed countries.