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Singapore's adjusted gender pay gap (GPG) has seen an improvement between 2002 to 2018, narrowing from 8.8% to 6%, a recent study by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has revealed. This meant that in 2018, for every S$100 men earned, women earned S$94.
The report, released yesterday (9 January), showed this figure to be lower than those found in similar studies done for the United States (8%), Canada (7.7% to 8.3%), and China (18.3).
To derive the above GPG for Singapore, the study took into account human capital and labour market factors such as age, education, occupation, usual hours worked per week, and industry.
What stood out in the report was that while human capital factors had little impact on this gap, occupation was found the most influential factor, due to occupational segregation. This showed men were over-represented in higher-paying occupations, while women tended to be in lower-paying occupations.
Women tended to be in over-represented in people-oriented occupations
If you've noticed a significant number of women in HR, teaching, and healthcare, this could be because women tend to have stronger interpersonal skills, a separate study cited in the report found.
In other words, women were more included to take up people-oriented occupations, i.e. jobs that require empathy and interactions, as these brought on higher levels of job satisfaction.
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