The ‘Global Wage Report 2018-19: What lies behind gender pay gaps’, published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), explores the global trends in wages. The report has carried out a detailed analysis of the gender wage gap and its implications for equality and social justice. It seeks to evolve an informed debate on gender wage imbalance “as a form of unacceptable inequality in the world of work”. This focus is part of the commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDG target 8.5 aims to achieve “equal pay for work of equal value” by 2030. One of the important findings is that the (weighted) global gender pay gap stands at around 16%. In terms of median monthly wages, it is 22%.
Globally, the real wage growth rates declined to 1.8% in 2017 and are at the lowest since the 2008 global financial crisis. In the G20 countries, real wage growth has declined to 0.4%. Eastern Europe has recorded a gradual increase of wage growth from 2.8% in 2016 to 5% in 2017. In the US, it declined from 2.2% (2015) to 0.7% in 2016 and 2017.
The report finds that among all the regions, workers in Asia and the Pacific have enjoyed the highest real wage growth since 2006. The decline of wage growth was also seen in Central and Western Asia, from 3% in 2016 to 0.5% in 2017. In Latin America and the Caribbean, real wage growth in 2017 has slightly increased and in Africa, real wages appear to have declined overall in 2017 by 3%.
Source: Deccan Herald
