The Gender Pay Gap in Uzbekistan: Recent Trends and Policy Implications

The gender pay gap represents (GPG) one of today’s main inequalities in the world of work, making its eradication has become a key policy objective for many countries across the world. 

The need to close the global gender pay gap is now more than ever recognized by governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations. The goal of closing the gender pay gap is set out in the ILO Constitution, in the Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), and in the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111). The 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work declared equal pay as a fundamental principle to be promoted, respected and realized by all ILO Member States. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.5 also calls for equal pay for work of equal value within the framework of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Using country-specific empirical evidence on the gender pay gap and learning what lies behind the gender is a key step in addressing the problem in the labour market. Using appropriate data (particularly, appropriate population-representative survey data) can help countries estimate the magnitude of the gender pay gap, identify the factors that lie behind these gaps and provide a better understanding of the part of the gender pay gap that cannot be explained by these so-called observed factors including informal work, time out of the workforce due to care responsibilities and the unequal share of family responsibilities between women and men, occupational gender segregation, under-representation women in traditionally male occupied sectors, and the undervaluation of women’s work in highly feminized occupations. 

The ILO report ‘’The Gender Pay Gap in Uzbekistan: Recent Trends and Policy Implications’’ presents new estimates of the gender pay gap in Uzbekistan, together with a discussion on the existing policy and legal framework to reduce the GPG in the country and possible policy options available to governments and social partners. The analysis reveals that women in wage employment earn on average between 25 and 35 per cent less than men. The report reviews the existing legal and policy framework that is currently in place in Uzbekistan to reduce the GPG with particular reference to the legal framework prohibiting any form of discrimination against women, before examining the potential role of the minimum wage as well as collective bargaining in reducing the GPG, the legislation governing maternity and paternity leave, the availability and quality of childcare services, special provisions to promote female education and training, interventions to foster female entrepreneurship and policies to promote female representation in the policy arena.

Based on the analysis of the data and the review of existing policies, the report presents some possible policy recommendations that could contribute to reducing the GPG. Interventions could include promoting pay transparency at the enterprise level and promoting the adoption of job evaluation tools, adapting minimum wage and collective bargaining legislation to actively reduce the GPG in combination with mechanisms that increase compliance with such labour market institutions, addressing obstacles to labour market integration faced by women around the time of childbirth as well as education and labour market policies to increase the quality of the jobs held by women. Additionally, access to better data sources, including access to individual-level information, is key in order to understand the main drivers behind the GPG and to design appropriate policy interventions.