The world will take more than a century to achieve gender pay equity.
Knowing your worth is subjective. For example, while the minimum amount of money most US workers were willing to accept for a new job reached a new high in 2023, the difference between what men and women will accept is stark.
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Last year, the New York Federal Reserve reported the minimum acceptable salary to switch jobs was $78,645. Men, on average, aren’t willing to accept less than $91,048, while women will accept $66,068.
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2023 found it will take more than 100 years to close that gap. The report calculates the global gender gap score—the percentage that the gap has closed—was 68.4 percent in 2023. That’s an increase of just 0.3 percent from 2022. At that pace, the world won’t achieve pay equity until 2154.
“Recent years have been marked by major setbacks for gender parity globally, with previous progress disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on women and girls in education and the workforce, followed by economic and geopolitical crises,” WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi says in the report. “Today, some parts of the world are seeing partial recoveries while others are experiencing deteriorations as new crises unfold.”
For the 14th consecutive year, Iceland holds the top spot at 91 percent. The US ranked 43rd at 75 percent.
Separately, online resume builder LiveCareer’s Gender and the Labor Market: 2023 Global Report examines pay disparity in 20 countries through factors such as discrimination, age, working hours, education, and parenthood. The study shows the US had a gender pay gap of 20 percent. Korea had the most significant gap at 34 percent.
In WEF’s report, Zahidi implores companies worldwide to take action to speed up the process from the current 131-year projection of closing the gap.
“The tepid progress on persistently large gaps documented in this seventeenth edition of the Global Gender Gap Report creates an urgent case for renewed and concerted action,” she says. “Accelerating progress towards gender parity will not only improve outcomes for women and girls but benefit economies and societies more widely, reviving growth, boosting innovation, and increasing resilience.”