The gender pay gap in Taiwan last year was 15.8 percent, slightly higher than the 15.1 percent in 2023, Ministry of Labor data showed yesterday.
The average hourly wage for males last year was NT$389, compared with NT$327 for women, meaning that woman on average would have needed to work 58 more days than males to make the same annual salary, up two days from 2023, the ministry said in a report.
The pay gap was a result of several factors, including the nature of the occupations typically dominated by one sex, as well as seniority, education and qualifications trends, the report said.
Photo courtesy of the Workforce Development Agency via CNA
The widening of the pay gap last year was greatly influenced by a few major industries with wide pay gaps, including the electronic components manufacturing industry, which had an average wage of NT$668 per hour among males and NT$393 among women, it said, adding that the gap was 41.2 percent, 1.9 percentage points higher than 2023.
The gap also widened in the food and healthcare sectors, which could be due to how positions are distributed in the industries and differences in raises, the report said.
Excluding the electronic components, food and healthcare industries, the wage gap last year was 11.5 percent, 0.3 percentage points higher than in 2023, it said.
Taiwan’s gender wage gap remained lower than in Japan and South Korea, which in 2023 reported 29.7 percent and 29 percent respectively, it added.
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