The mean gender pay gap is 50 per cent lower for organisations that have women holding CEO position. That means, the gender pay gap is lower when the CEO is a woman. This was revealed by the Bloomberg’s Gender-Equality Index 2023.The average mean gender pay gap for organisations with male CEOs was 18, while in case of firms with women CEOs it was 9.
The Index reveals that organisations that have more women executive tend to be more keen to conduct a gender-based compensation review to study whether the extent of gender pay gap.
It is a positive sign that in the 2022 to 2023 period, the average mean gender pay gap for GEI members has reduced by five per cent. The number of companies disclosing pay gap data to the Gender Reporting Framework has also gone up by two per cent. What is even better is that nine Indian companies have made it to the Index this year. This is commendable because 620 companies submitted their gender-related data across 50 countries, which is 11 per cent more than the previous year.
Of the 484 GEI member companies, 479 companies revealed data that answered questions pertaining to whether a global equal pay audit or pay equity review was conducted to identify gaps in pay of men and women doing equivalent work; whether public disclosure was done of a quantitative compensation review by gender.
About 46 per cent of the members performed a global equal-pay audit and revealed a quantitative compensation review by gender. About 15 per cent neither admitted to not performing a global equal pay audit nor publicly disclosing a quantitative compensation review by gender.
While 24 per cent performed a global equal pay audit, they did not publicly disclose a quantitative compensation review by gender.
It is true that more and more organisations are conducting gender-based pay reviews to examine equal pay for equal work and implement action plans to close the gender pay gap, meaningful change can only be brought about through consistent efforts. Merely putting in place policies is not enough says the report. Organisations need to stay consistent with their pay analysis, conduct pay- equity reviews on a regular basis and make adjustments for their workforce.
Understandably, the mean gender pay gap for companies that have undertaken an ‘equal pay for equal work’ gender-based compensation review and implemented a raw gender pay gap action plan is lower than organisations that haven’t done either or have done only one.
