Singapore's gender pay gap higher than official estimates at 12.8%: study

The average base pay was $71,631 per year for men and $61,653 for women.

Women in Singapore earned an estimated $0.87 for every dollar earned by men over the last three years, representing a 12.8% gender pay gap, according to a report by recruitment platform Glassdoor. This is higher than official estimates of 11.8% for 2018, the firm said.

The analysis, which used a sample of 5,096 Glassdoor salaries reported by Singaporean employees of which 68% were male and 32% female between 2016 and 2018, found that the average base pay was $71,631 per year for men and $61,653 for women, amounting to a gender pay gap of $9,978 in base pay between men and women. Glassdoor’s data reportedly contained information on approximately 1,477 unique Singaporean employers and 1,656 job titles. The average base pay in the sample was $68,391, ranging from $2,000 to a high of $864,000.

The unadjusted gender pay gap for total compensation in Singapore was found to be slightly higher than for base pay, at 13.3% for median total pay. Average total compensation was higher at $82,925.

According to the study, of the overall 12.8% gender gap in base pay, 7.7% (or 60%of the total gap) is explained by differences in worker characteristics, whilst the remaining 5.1% (or 40% of the total gap) is unexplained due to either unobserved factors or subtle forms of workplace discrimination.

“Of the roughly 60% of the gender gap that is explained, 16% is due to the sorting of men and women into different industries and occupations, whilst 45% is due to differences in education and experience between males and females. Put differently, individual worker characteristics explain 45%of the Singapore gender pay gap. By contrast, the fact that men and women systematically work in different roles explains only 16%,” Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist and one of the report’s authors, noted.

Across the eight countries examined comprising of Australia, France, Canada, US, UK, Singapore, Germany, and the Netherlands, Germany was found to have the largest unadjusted gap with women earning about 78 cents per euro men earned, whilst France has the smallest unadjusted gap with women earning about 88 cents per euro men earn.

Australia has the smallest adjusted gap with women earning 97 cents per dollar men earn, whilst the Netherlands had the largest adjusted gap with women earning 93 cents per euro.