Finland's government is planning a bold move in the hopes of furthering pay parity. In a new draft law, it proposes that workplaces should have to disclose earnings along gender lines. The country already published the taxable income of all citizens once a year.
While employing many progressive policies around child care and other equality issues, Finland is still grappling with a big gender pay gap - 17.2 percent in 2019 - as seen in OECD data. This was about as much as the gap in the United States or neighbor Estonia.
According to the data, South Korea has the most work to do in order to close the gender wage gap. A male worker in South Korea outearned his female counterpart by 31.5 percent in 2020. The problem is also highly evident in other Asian countries, for example Japan. In 2020, the wage gap between the sexes was 22.5 percent there. Even though things are slightly better in North America, both the U.S. and Canada still have wage gaps between 16 and 18 percent.
Among highly developed countries, Belgium had one of the smallest gender wage gaps at just 3.4 percent. Conversely, small gender pay gaps or even negative pay gaps can also hint at an economy in crisis where competitive and higher-paid positions typically occupied by men have vanished. Women tend to occupy positions in low-prestige, but stabler parts of the economy, for example education, child and elder care or public administration. Men's employment can take further hits when jobs in manufacturing or related fields disappear due to economic trouble, leading to women out-earning men in some instances.
