The gender pay gap in the health and care sector: A global analysis in the time of COVID-19

This report was developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It was released on July 13, 2022, and is the first-ever global and sector-wide report that provides an analysis of the gender pay gap in the health and care sector. The report uses representative survey data from salaried workers from 54 countries categorised into four groups – Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean regions; South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions; the Americas; and Europe.  The report finds that the health and care sector is highly feminised across all countries, that is, women account for the majority of the people employed. Despite this, globally women earn 20 per cent less compared to men engaged in this sector. The report highlights that gender pay gaps in the health and care sector tend to be wider than in other sectors. Additionally, pay equality saw only small improvements between January 2019 and December 2020 despite the crucial role of health workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.  The 160-page report is divided into eight sections: Introduction (Section 1); The health workforce across the world (Section 2); The gender pay gap in the health and care sector (Section 3); Factors driving the gender pay gap in the health and care sector (Section 4); Decomposing the gender pay gap in the health and care sector (Section 5); Employment characteristics and the gender pay gap over time in the health and care sector (Section 6); The effect of Covid-19 on employment and earnings in the health and care sector (Section 7); and The way forward towards reducing gender pay inequalities in the health and care sector (Section 8).