International Women’s Day is a good opportunity to reflect on efforts to promote equality in the labor market and the latest developments in this area

08.03.2023

Liora Bowers, Chief Financial & Operating Officer of the Taub Center, in a post in honor of International Women's Day

As International Women’s Day approaches, I take the opportunity to reflect on the latest developments and trends in the efforts towards equality in the labor market.  Unfortunately, new Taub Center research shows that the overall gap in Israel is among the largest in the OECD countries and has not really changed in recent years.

As a non-Haredi Jewish woman, the finding that this group has the largest wage gaps – at 37% in gross wages and 25% in hourly wages particularly resonates with me.  I was shocked to see that even after accounting for differences in working hours, industry and other factors that affect wages, the unexplained portion of the gap stands at 10% for non-Haredi Jews.  That’s a huge gap – essentially, 10% of the gap between the earnings of non-Haredi Jewish men and women may be due to solely to gender-based differences such as overt discrimination or differences in negotiation styles and results to the detriment of women.

On the other hand, some trends on wage gaps in the Haredi and Arab sector could be seen as encouraging.  During the period of 2014-2018, the hourly wage gap actually improved to be 6% in favor of Haredi women (likely because of the entry of more unskilled Haredi men into the workforce).  Similarly, while it is concerning that the gender wage gaps among Arabs – which were virtually non-existent in 2014 – increased to 15%, this likely reflects the continued major growth in the numbers of Arab women who are entering the labor market for the first time.

2022 was a milestone year for the continued efforts to reduce wage gaps between the genders.  An amendment to the Equal Pay for Male and Female Employees Law, the proposal of which cited Taub Center’s research on this topic, went into effect. This law requires large employers to collect data on gender wage gaps among employees by group, share it via an internal report with each employee and publicly report the data on an aggregate level.  As the reporting deadline approached in June 2022, there were headlines across the news media citing these reports and widely discussing wage gaps in different companies in Israel.  Let’s hope that the emphasis on wage gaps – both publicly and internally among employers –  means that in five years’ time, we will be finally be able to see evidence of a reduction in the naggingly persistent wage gaps between Israeli men and women.