Closing gender and ethnicity pay gaps

Why the pay gap matters

The gender pay gap is a visible manifestation of gender inequality: the difference between what women and men are paid across an organisation, driven not by equal-pay-for-equal-work violations but by who holds the senior, higher-paid roles. It is one of the few measures of workplace inequality reported consistently and publicly, which makes it a powerful lens on how power and reward are distributed.

Since 2017, UK employers with 250 or more staff have been legally required to publish their gender pay gap figures every year – creating an unprecedented level of transparency. We use that data to examine how organisations active in global health perform, what drives the gaps, and what helps close them. Most economies still have no such requirement, underlining the case for mandatory reporting worldwide.