Ethiopia’s Wage Gap and the Fight for Pay Equity
This International Women’s Day, as we celebrate the women in our lives, celebrate the progress made, we must also demand action. Women deserve more than two-thirds of a paycheck. Today on Reqiq, we are inviting you to a dialogue about Ethiopia’s gender wage gap.
On the bustling streets of Addis Ababa, in the quiet fields of Oromia, in the hills of SNNPR, and inside the gleaming offices of institutions across sectors, millions of Ethiopian women go to work every day. They are teachers, domestic workers, factory hands, executives, and so much more. Yet, across almost every sector, from agriculture to finance, the numbers tell a grim story: women in Ethiopia earn significantly less than men.
The latest data from the Ethiopian Statistics Service (ESS) reveals that in 2022, the average monthly earnings for female paid employees in urban Ethiopia were 4,414 birr, while men earned 6,525 birr (ESS, 2022). This means that for every birr a man earns, a woman earns only two-thirds. The gender wage gap is neither a coincidence nor a statistical anomaly; it is a persistent and systemic issue rooted in historical, social, and economic factors. As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, it is imperative to examine the realities Ethiopian women face and what must be done to close this glaring disparity.
Read More: https://reqiq.co/she-is-pricedless-ethiopias-wage-gap-and-the-fight-for-pay-equity/