Compensation & Benefits

Women earn 13% less than men in Singapore

According to YouGov’s latest survey of 1,038 Singaporeans, 38 percent believe that no gender pay gap exists, and that both genders are equally paid. Diving deeper, the research found that men were more likely to think this is true than women (47 percent vs. 29 percent).

However, a latest research by Glassdoor reveals that a gender pay gap exists in Singapore, what with women earning 13 percent less than men according to a Glassdoor research.

A more surprising finding was that 7 percent thought that men are paid less than women. Again, this belief is more predominantly held by men (13 percent vs. 1 percent).

However, a majority of Singaporeans (43 percent) believed that women are paid less than men as a whole. Unsurprisingly, women were more likely to believe this than men (55 percent vs 30 percent).

When asked about the contributing reasons for a gender pay gap, the top culprit identified by Singaporeans was unconscious bias (47 percent).

This was followed by fewer leadership positions offered to a particular gender (47 percent), a particular gender not being paid as much (25 percent), and a particular gender working fewer hours than another gender (20 percent). Other reasons identified includes particular gender being less educated than another gender (17 percent), and a particular gender is not working as hard as another gender (15 percent).

Overall, most (68 percent) agreed that it is important to close the gender pay gap. A similar percentage (61 percent) agreed that legislation should be put in place to prevent a gender pay gap from occurring.

The survey also found that while 71 percent of Singaporeans claim to have some understanding of the term gender pay gap, the majority (72 percent) were unable to correctly identify the definition of it – that is, a gender being paid less on average than another as a whole.

Only three in ten (28 percent) were able to select this definition, while 62% thought the term meant a gender being paid less than another gender for doing the same job. The remaining 10 percent didn’t know altogether.

 

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