Gender pay gaps are a critical manifestation of gender inequalities in the labour market, reflecting a range of differential outcomes and factors facing men and women today: gender gaps in unpaid work, gender differences in occupations, women’s underrepresentation in leadership, discrimination and beyond. Gender pay gaps also help to predict gender inequalities tomorrow, including gender gaps in pensions and in old-age poverty. 

As of 2024, many countries noted the presence of an indicator, target or goal relating to the gender pay gap in their gender equality strategies, frameworks and/or action plans and many countries encourage or mandate pay transparency among employers. 

Across OECD countries, employment in general government reaches almost 20%, making the government as an employer well placed to lead by example and set the standard for fairness, equality and transparency. This technical paper provides key recommendations for pay gap reporting for public administrations.

Key recommendations

• Governments should publicly report summary statistics on men’s and women’s earnings, disaggregated by key personal and job characteristics, where possible.
• Gender pay gaps should be presented at the mean, at the median, and at various points along the distribution of earnings.
• Responsibility for measuring and monitoring the gender pay gap can fall to various actors. 
• Particular attention needs to be paid to data protection and confidentiality.
• Understanding why gender pay gaps persist is as important as measuring their size.