Singapore's adjusted gender pay gap narrows to 6%: MOM study

WHILE women still earn less than men in Singapore, the pay difference between men and women with similar roles, experience and age has narrowed over the years, even if other occupational segregation appears to have worsened, a study has found.

In the first such study here, researchers from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) found that the median pay gap between men and women was 6 per cent in 2018, after adjusting for factors such as industry, age, education and experience, down from 8.8 per cent in 2002.

The findings were published in an occasional paper titled "Singapore's Adjusted Gender Pay Gap" on Thursday.

Commenting on the findings, Low Peck Kem, president of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, said: "It's a good trend even though it took 16 years for us to move from 8.8 to 6 per cent, but I am actually quite confident that we can continue to move down the trend and do better even though I don't think it'll go down to zero."

Without accounting for these factors, however, the unadjusted gender pay gap, which is computed using median incomes of men and women, stands at 16.3 per cent in 2018, marginally higher than 2002's gap of 16 per cent. The unadjusted pay gap is commonly used in international comparisons, including those by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

One key driver of the 10.3 per cent difference between the two values recorded for 2018 is "occupational segregation", the paper said. This occurs due to "inherent gender differences" that may, for example, influence women to avoid jobs in sectors that are "traditionally male-dominated", such as IT and engineering.

Factors leading to the remaining 6 per cent gap cannot be measured using available data, MOM and NUS said. Such factors could include firm type, job scope, type of experience, parenthood, caregiving responsibilities, gender differences in psychological attributes and discrimination.

Ms Low said: "Men have become more progressive these days in that they take more than their fathers' share in terms of the family and household chores and family care, but fundamentally it is more of the women and it's very much cultural."

In addition, the uptick in the unadjusted gender pay gap over the 16-year period, suggests that occupational segregation could have widened, possibly together with increased differences in pay across occupations, the paper said.

In other words, women may remain under-represented in certain male dominated sectors that are high-paying, even though the pay gap between male and female employees with similar attributes in the same industry has been narrowing.

MOM said the government's support for more shared caregiving responsibilities between men and women and promotion of flexible work arrangements aims to reduce the effects of such norms.

In addition, several government agencies also have outreach programmes for young women and girls to encourage them to join the tech industry.