Rajeev Choudhury

Even though women constitute 70% of all healthcare providers globally, they earn almost a quarter less than their male counterparts in the healthcare sector across the world, a recent groundbreaking study conducted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and World Health Organisation (WHO) has found.

The study, which is the most comprehensive global analysis of gender pay inequalities in the healthcare sector found that the gender parity gap in the sector is larger than in other sectors of the economy.

The report found that the raw gender pay gap of approximately 20 percentage points, jumps to 24 percentage points when factors such as age, education and working time are taken into account.

Noting that the wages in the healthcare sector are lower than the other economic sectors, the study found that despite the role played by the healthcare workers during the COVID19 pandemic, the gap between the wages of male and female workers improved marginally between 2019 and 2020.

The study further found that the gender pay gaps in different countries vary widely, which points toward the fact that pay gaps in the sector are not inevitable and more can be done to reduce the gap further.

Additionally, while the higher pay categories were those in which the men are overrepresented, the lower pay categories had an over-representation of women.

The report further noted that the reasons women are paid less than men with similar labour market profiles in the health and care sector across the world remain largely unexplained by labour market factors.

“The health and care sector has endured low pay in general, stubbornly large gender pay gaps, and demanding working conditions. The COVID19 pandemic exposed this situation while also demonstrating how vital the sector and its workers are in keeping families, societies and economies going,” said Manuela Tomei, Director of the Conditions of Work and Equality Department at the ILO.

Stating that there will be no inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery without a stronger health and care sector, she added, “We cannot have better-quality health and care services without better and fairer working conditions, including fairer wages, for health and care workers, the majority of whom are women.”

Commenting that though women comprise the majority of workers in the health and care sector, systemic biases in many countries are resulting in pernicious pay penalties against them, WHO Director of Health Workforce, Jim Campbell said, “The evidence and analysis in this ground-breaking report must inform governments, employers and workers to take effective action. Encouragingly, the success stories in several countries show the way, including wage increases and political commitment to pay equity.”