UAE makes paradigm shifts in equal pay for both genders

ABU DHABI, 17th September, 2021 The UAE has created a paradigm shift in closing the gap related to pay disparities between men and women in the same workplace or businesses of the same value over the last three years. Equal pay for men and women constitutes one of the critical components of respect for human rights and its commitment to strike a gender balance. The country was ranked 18th globally and 1st regionally in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) of the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2020. Tomorrow, 18th September, the UAE will join countries worldwide in celebrating International Equal Pay Day. It was approved by the United Nations (UN), as an annual occasion to intensify efforts to empower women and girls and remove all obstacles to achieving equality between them and men in the labour market. According to the World Bank’s 2021 "Women, Business and the Law" (WBL) report, the UAE has topped the MENA region rankings due to several legislative reforms related to women’s economic participation enacted over the last three years. The annual report comprises eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they begin, progress through, and end their careers. The indicators are, Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. This year, the UAE achieved 82.5 points out of 100, compared to 56 scored in the report’s 2020 edition and 29 points in the 2019 edition. The UAE also achieved a complete score (100 points) in five indicators in the latest report: Movement, Workplace, Wages, Entrepreneurship, and Pension. The UAE was ranked first across the Arab world in the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report for 2021. The UAE also ranked first globally in four of the report’s indicators: women in parliament, gender ratio at birth,