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ST/ESA/STAT/SER.K/WWW/16/Rev.5
22 April 2005

The World's Women reports
 
Table 5g - Women's wages relative to men's
Source | Technical notes

Country

Year

Women's wages in manufacturing as a percentage of men's wages

Notes

Africa

Botswana

2003

52

(1) (2)

Egypt

2002

68

(3)

Eritrea

1996

66

 

Kenya

1997

123

(4)

Swaziland

1997

63

(5) (6)

America, North

Costa Rica

2001

83

 

El Salvador

2003

69

 

Mexico

2001

70

 

Panama

1999

93

(7)

Saint Lucia

2002

85

(8)

America, South

Brazil

2002

61

 

Colombia

2003

65

 

Paraguay

2003

53

 

Peru

1995

55

(9)

Asia

Bahrain

2002

44

(3) (5)

China

 

 

 

   Hong Kong SAR

2002

64

 

   Macao SAR

2003

67

 

Cyprus

2002

61

(10) (11)

Georgia

2003

62

 

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

2001

80

 

Japan

2003

60

(3) (5) (12)

Jordan

2001

65

 

Kazakhstan

2003

70

 

Malaysia

1997

63

 

Mongolia

2003

87

 

Myanmar

1999

112

(13)

Occupied Palestinian Territory

2002

49

(14)

Philippines

1998

80

(3) (16)

Qatar

2001

194

Republic of Korea

2002

56

(11) (17)

Singapore

2003

61

 

Sri Lanka

2003

81

 

Thailand

2001

72

 

Turkey

1997

97

 

Europe

Austria

2001

60

 

Belgium

1999

81

 

Bulgaria

2001

68

(18)

Denmark

2002

87

(5)

Finland

2002

83

(19)

France

2002

78

 

Germany

2003

74

 

Greece

1998

82

(3)

Hungary

2002

74

(17) (19)

Iceland

2003

78

(20) (21)

Ireland

2003

69

(3) (22)

Latvia

2003

82

 

Lithuania

2003

77

(23) (24)

Luxembourg

1996

63

 

Malta

2003

92

 

Netherlands

2000

78

(19) (25)

Norway

2003

88

(19) (25)

Portugal

1999

64

 

Sweden

2003

91

(5) (26)

Switzerland

2002

133

(27)

Ukraine

2003

69

 

United Kingdom

2003

79

(28) (29) (30)

Oceania

Australia

2002

89

(31)

French Polynesia

2003

87

 

New Zealand

2003

80

(32) (33)

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Sources
 

Prepared by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Secretariat from International Labour Office, Yearbook of Labour Statistics 2003 (Geneva, 2003) and ILO, LABORSTA database, table 5B (accessed on 22 February 2005).
 
Footnotes
 

(1)

Citizens only.

(2)

Excluding governmental sector.

(3)

Establishments with 10 or more persons employed.

(4)

Including the value of payments in kind.

(5)

Private sector.

(6)

Skilled wage earners.

(7)

Median.

(8)

Unweighted survey results. Minimum rates actually paid.

(9)

Lima.

(10)

Adults.

(11)

Including family allowances and the value of payments in kind.

(12)

Regular scheduled cash earnings.

(13)

Regular employees.

(14)

Net earnings.

(16)

Computed on the basis of annual wages.

(17)

Enterprises with 5 or more employees.

(18)

Employees under labour contract.

(19)

Full-time employees only.

(20)

Adult employees.

(21)

Excluding overtime payments and payments in kind.

(22)

Including juveniles.

(23)

All employees converted into full-time units.

(24)

Excluding individual unincorporated enterprises.

(25)

Excluding overtime payments.

(26)

Excluding holidays, sick-leave and overtime payments.

(27)

Standardised monthly earnings (40 hours x 4 1/3 weeks).

(28)

Excluding Northern Ireland.

(29)

Full-time employees on adult rates of pay.

(30)

Including overtime payments.

(31)

Full-time adult non-managerial employees.

(32)

Establishments with the equivalent of more than 0.5 full-time paid employees.

(33)

Full-time equivalent employees.
 
Technical notes
 

The indicator presented in this table is the ratio of female wages to male wages in manufacturing, expressed as a percentage. The statistics of wages from which the ratio is computed are, in general, average earnings per wage-earner (regardless of age) or in some cases wage rates. The data on average earnings are usually derived from payroll data supplied by a sample of establishments often also furnishing data on hours of work and on employment. In a few cases, average earnings are compiled from social insurance statistics or labour force surveys.

International comparisons of wage ratios presented here must be made with great caution. The coverage, definitions and methods of compiling wage statistics differ significantly from country to country. Disaggregation of statistics by sex is available for only a few countries and may be based on a narrow segment of the population. Furthermore, earnings are very much dependent on the number of hours worked, and where female workers generally work a much smaller number of hours than male workers, this factor must be kept in mind when interpreting the wage ratio.

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United Nations Statistics Division - Demographic and Social Statistics