Gender Pay Gap in India Better than US, UK: Korn Ferry

India’s overall gender pay gap may still be better than countries like the US, the UK, Germany, Brazil, but it is nothing to write home about either. Men, on an average, are still paid 16.1 percent higher than the women in India. In Brazil, the gap is 26.2 percent, in the UK it is 23.8 percent, in the US the gap is 17.6 percent and in Germany, it is marginally higher than India at 16.8 percent, as per the latest global analysis by the Los Angeles-headquartered executive search firm- Korn Ferry. The Korn Ferry Gender Pay Index has been compiled on the basis of information from Korn Ferry’s pay database. It is an analysis of gender and pays for a sample size of over 12.3 million employees in 14,284 companies in 53 countries across the world.

Going by the findings and observations of the study, the much-publicised pay gap between men and women is real. The Korn Ferry study attributed this mostly to fewer women than men in higher-paying roles.

The study suggested that globally, on an average, men are paid considerably more (16.1 percent) than women. Interestingly, however, the Korn Ferry Gender Pay Index indicated that, while evaluating the same job level, such as director, the gap dropped to 5.3 percent globally.

That’s not all. If one considers the same level at the same company, the gap comes down further to 1.5 percent. And when the male and female employees are at the same level and the same company and work in the same function, the average gap amounts to 0.5 percent.

Bob Wesselkamper, Head of Rewards and Benefits Solutions, Korn Ferry, said that their data reveals that women earn about 16 percent less than men as a whole, which is a real, significant issue, but this doesn’t paint the complete picture. While there are still a number of organizations that pay women less for the same role, on an average, when the study compared women and men in the same job, the gap was significantly reduced.