Money

The Smallest Gender Wage Gaps in OECD Countries

Published

5 months ago

April 11, 2024

Julia Wendling

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The Smallest Gender Pay Gaps in OECD Countries

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Among the 38 member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), several have made significant strides in addressing income inequality between men and women.

In this graphic we’ve ranked the OECD countries with the 10 smallest gender pay gaps, using the latest data from the OECD for 2022.

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between median full-time earnings for men and women divided by the median full-time earnings of men.

Which Countries Have the Smallest Gender Pay Gaps?

Luxembourg’s gender pay gap is the lowest among OECD members at only 0.4%—well below the OECD average of 11.6%.

Rank	Country	Percentage Difference in Men's & Women's Full-time Earnings
1	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	0.4%
2	🇧🇪 Belgium	1.1%
3	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	1.4%
4	🇨🇴 Colombia	1.9%
5	🇮🇪 Ireland	2.0%
6	🇭🇷 Croatia	3.2%
7	🇮🇹 Italy	3.3%
8	🇳🇴 Norway	4.5%
9	🇩🇰 Denmark	5.8%
10	🇵🇹 Portugal	6.1%
	OECD Average	11.6%

Notably, eight of the top 10 countries with the smallest gender pay gaps are located in Europe, as labor equality laws designed to target gender differences have begun to pay off.

The two other countries that made the list were Costa Rica (1.4%) and Colombia (1.9%), which came in third and fourth place, respectively.

How Did Luxembourg (Nearly) Eliminate its Gender Wage Gap?

Luxembourg’s virtually-non-existent gender wage gap in 2020 can be traced back to its diligent efforts to prioritize equal pay. Since 2016, firms that have not complied with the Labor Code’s equal pay laws have been subjected to penalizing fines ranging from €251 to €25,000.

Higher female education rates also contribute to the diminishing pay gap, with Luxembourg tied for first in the educational attainment rankings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index Report for 2023.

See More Graphics about Demographics and Money

While these 10 countries are well below the OECD’s average gender pay gap of 11.6%, many OECD member countries including the U.S. are significantly above the average. To see the full list of the top 10 OECD countries with the largest gender pay gaps, check out this visualization.