"The salary of women in Russia is 70% the average salary of men,” Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said in early March. If this is so (there are no such official statistics thus far), the “wage gap” in the country over the past year has grown even larger. In 2017, according to Rosstat, the average earnings of women was almost 72% of the average for men.
And, according to data cited by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in a recent report, the average gender wage gap around the world is 25% smaller than the one that exists today in Russia:
At the end of February 2019, the World Bank presented a report titled “Women, Business and the Law 2019 : A Decade of Reform”, which compared 187 countries (out of the 193 countries that are currently United Nations members). The final score for each country was based on eight factors, which the report deemed as “Going Places” (freedom of movement), “Starting a Job” (employment), “Getting Paid” (wages), “Getting Married” (marriage), “Having Children” (motherhood), “Running a Business” (starting businesses), “Managing Assets” (financial and material asset management) and “Getting a Pension” (retirement).
Only six countries received the maximum possible 100 points. Russia was ranked 116th out of the 187 countries, behind all former Soviet republics except Uzbekistan.
Among the eight factors in the World Bank rating, Russia did worst in the area of “Getting Paid” - which means that, when it comes to the gender pay gap, it finds itself in the same company as China, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia and Papua New Guinea.
This fact check is translated from our partner, Factograph.info. https://www.factograph.info/