ILO Asia-Pacific Garment and Footwear Sector Research Note Issue 9

Gender pay gaps in the garment, textile and footwear sector in developing Asia

This Research Note provides recent estimates of gender pay gaps in the Garment, Textiles and Footwear (GTF) sector in nine countries in Asia, and assesses the extent to which the observed gaps may be attributed to differences in individual observable characteristics, or to gender-based discrimination.

This Research Note finds that the average raw gender pay gap in the Garment, Textiles and Footwear (GTF) sector in nine countries in Asia is approximately 18 per cent. Individual observable characteristics such as age, education, experience, and so forth, are shown to have limited explanatory value in accounting for observed gendered wage differentials within the GTF sector in developing Asia. The Research Note concludes that a large proportion of the observed gender pay gap is likely to be attributable to gender-based wage discrimination.