Ripa Rashid is highly educated, has worked at some of the world’s top blue-chip companies, and is an expert in workplace diversity and talent management, but even she got caught out by the gender¹ wage gap.

里帕?拉希德(Ripa Rashid)受过高等教育，曾效力于多家世界顶尖的蓝筹公司，还是一名工作场所多样性和人才管理方面的专家，但就连她也碰到了性别薪资差异的问题。

Ms Rashid, senior vice-president at the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) in New York, recalls working at a think-tank in Malaysia.

拉希德在纽约的人才创新中心(CTI)当高级副总裁，她回忆起在一家马来西亚智库工作的时光。

“It took me six months to realise I was being paid 30 per cent less than a male colleague. By that time, I had already made the decision to leave.”

“我上了半年班才发现，我的工资比一位男同事低30%。在那之前，我已决定要辞职了。”

Her experience illustrates² the secrecy³ that exists in many companies and cultures around wages. It allows managers to treat people unequally, even where legislation exists, and makes it hard to get timely data.

她的经历揭示了存在于许多企业和文化中的工资保密制度。在这种制度下，管理层可以不公平地对待员工，即使在有相关立法的国家，并且使得人们难以获得及时的数据。

Research by the International Labour Organisation⁴ (ILO) shows that the gender wage gap has gradually narrowed over the past few decades, for example in Latin America.

国际劳工组织(ILO)的研究表明，过去几十年，性别薪资差距逐渐有所缩小，例如在拉丁美洲。

However, progress appears to have stagnated⁵, or even reversed, since the 2008 global downturn. Even in senior ranks, disparities persist and range from a few percentage points in Panama, to almost 20 per cent in South Africa, and more than 50 per cent in Azerbaijan, says an ILO report Women in Business and Management: Gaining Momentum⁶, released in January.

然而，自2008年全球经济衰退以后，这种进步似乎已经停滞，甚至出现了逆转。今年1月ILO发布的一份名为《女性在商业和管理领域中趋于活跃》的报告称，即使在高层也仍然存在差距，程度从巴拿马的几个百分点，到南非的接近20%和阿塞拜疆的逾50%。

“The world assumes that managers earn more but there’s still a pay gap when we know women are often more educated than men,” says Linda Wirth, one of the authors of the ILO report. “The Brics [Brazil, Russia, India and China] have seen greater growth and reduction of poverty but they also have growing inequality in many areas.”

“全世界都认为经理赚得更多，但即使女性通常比男性受教育程度更高，也仍然存在男女收入差距，”该报告的作者之一琳达?威尔特(Linda Wirth)说。“金砖国家（巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国）实现了较大幅度的经济增长和减贫，但这些国家在许多领域内的不平等也在扩大。”

The pay gap with men often only reflects women who work as employees, not the self-employed, who make up about 60 per cent of the female workforce⁷ in Latin America and the Caribbean and closer to 50 per cent in Asia, says Kristen Sobeck, an ILO economist⁸.

ILO经济学家克里斯汀?索贝克(Kristen Sobeck)说，与男性之间的薪资差距通常只出现在作为公司职员、而非自谋职业者(the self-employed)的女性身上，后者在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区约占女性劳动人口的60%，而在亚洲则接近50%。

“A smaller gender pay gap is only part of the picture and may in some instances not even necessarily reflect positive changes in the status of women in a given country,” she says.

她说：“有所缩小的性别工资差距只是一个方面，在某些情况下，也未必反映一个特定国家中妇女地位的积极变化。”

But, according to a World Bank report Gender at Work, women are less likely to be in the labour force and more likely to earn less than men in the 10 most populous⁹ developing countries: India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines, Egypt and Turkey.

但是，世界银行(World Bank)发布的一份名为《工作中的性别》(Gender at Work)的报告指出，在10个人口最稠密的发展中国家，女性找到工作的可能性更小，而比男性收入低的可能性更大。这些国家包括印度、印度尼西亚、巴西、巴基斯坦、孟加拉国、墨西哥、越南、菲律宾、埃及和土耳其。

Working women are less likely than working men to be employed in wage jobs in all these countries except Brazil. The report also confirms that the gap in earnings¹⁰ tends to be larger in the informal than in the formal sector¹¹.

在所有这些国家（除了巴西），劳动女性找到有薪工作的可能性要低于男性。该报告还证实，非正规行业内的收入差距往往比正规行业要大。

Henriette Kolb, head of the gender secretariat at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank, gives the example of Turkey, where “the divergence¹² between what men and women are paid appears to be small, yet there are large gender disparities in labour force participation¹³ and employment in wage jobs”.

世界银行旗下的私营部门贷款分支国际金融公司(International Finance Corporation)的性别秘书处负责人亨里埃特?科尔布(Henriette Kolb)举了土耳其的例子说道：“男性和女性之间的薪资差距看起来很小，但在劳动参与和有薪工作方面，性别差距仍很大”。

However, some women might be paid more than men in developing countries that have invested heavily in health and education. Top jobs in these sectors¹⁴ can command a premium¹⁵ and often employ many women, explains Sheila Wild, a British equality consultant¹⁶ and a former director at the Equal Opportunities Commission.

然而，在一些在卫生和教育领域投入巨资的发展中国家，部分女性的收入可能比男性高。英国性别平等顾问、“平等机会委员会”(Equal Opportunities Commission)前主任希拉?怀尔德(Sheila Wild)解释说，这些行业的高层职位能得到更高的薪酬，而且通常聘用许多女性。

“I would expect the wage gap to be lower in some emerging markets, because the gender gap is not just about what women are paid, but how much they get in relation to men and often they are all paid less,” she says. “There is also less part-time work, which is a dangerous area if it’s just treated as a cheap labour pool as it is in Britain.”

“我期望一些新兴市场的工资差距会缩小，因为性别工资差距不仅关乎女性的报酬，也关乎她们相对男性的收入水平，而通常她们的报酬都更低，”她说。“兼职工作也比较少，而且，如果像在英国那样，只是将其当作廉价的劳动力来源的话，那么这是一个危险的领域。”

Several factors have contributed to the small progress made so far. More women than men are graduating from university in, for example, Brazil (60 per cent) and the United Arab Emirates (65 per cent), CTI research shows.

有几个因素推动了迄今为止所取得的微小进步。CTI研究显示，女性大学毕业生的数量比男性多，例如，在巴西和阿拉伯联合酋长国，女性大学生分别占60%和65%。

The working week may be much longer, with more than 60 hours common, but a majority of women in Bric countries had “shoulders to lean on” using family members or paid domestic help. The public sector is also seen as an attractive alternative to the private sector, with 65 per cent of women in Brazil.

女性每周工作时间可能更长，超过60小时很常见，但金砖国家大多数女性有“肩膀可以依靠”，靠家庭成员或收费的家政服务人员的帮助。此外，与私营部门的工作相比，公共部门的职位被视为是有吸引力的，巴西65%女性持这一观点。

A broad mix of legislation and private sector action tailored to individual markets is needed to achieve faster progress in wage parity¹⁷, say experts. “

专家称，必须双管齐下，制定相关法律，同时推动私营部门针对具体市场采取行动，以实现在工资平等方面的更大进步。

The private sector can take action by providing targeted training and skills-development by creating flexible, family-friendly working environments, and by using global business certification standards for gender equality, says Ms Kolb.

“私营部门可以采取行动，提供有针对性的培训和技能开发，创造灵活的、家庭友好型的工作环境，并利用全球商业认证标准，促进性别平等，”科尔布说。

Uschi Schreiber, chairwoman of the global accounts committee at EY, the professional services firm, calls for greater transparency around wages in the private sector. “If you look at how governments do it, they have visibility around what people can earn, so we should be able to use bands at least. Pay rates are often hidden from negotiators and not everyone has the full picture.”

专业服务公司安永会计师事务所(EY)全球会计委员会主席Uschi Schreiber呼吁提高私营部门的工资透明度。“如果你看看政府的做法，它们在工资方面是透明的，所以我们至少能够利用这种分级。谈判代表往往不了解工资率，不是每个人都知道全部情况。”