It looks like Indonesia still has ways to go to eliminate the gender pay gap as a recent study by the National Statistics Agency (BPS) showed that men, on average, earn more than women in nearly all of the industries they analyzed.
As reported by Detik yesterday, BPS found that women earn more on average than men in only 3 out of 17 industries. According to the study, which was carried out in February, women in Indonesia earn higher average monthly salaries in construction (IDR2.91 million to men’s IDR2.62 million), transportation and warehousing (IDR3.8 million to IDR3.12 million), and real estate (IDR3.21 million to IDR 3.04 million).
Aside from these three, men swept the board in every other industry, such as mining (IDR4.17 million to women’s IDR3.43 million), health (IDR3.25 million to IDR2.854 million), and water, waste and recycling management (IDR3.3 million to IDR1.54 million).
As such, women also lagged behind in the national average, with men earning on average IDR2.91 million and women earning IDR2.21 million.
BPS did not provide data as to the percentage of workers by gender in the respective industries, or the specific types of jobs men and women held within those sectors. But it’s not hard to spot that in two of the industries in which women came out on top (construction; transportation and warehousing), men are traditionally more likely to hold menial labor-intensive jobs while women are more likely to hold management jobs.
In 2016, a study by Monash Business School in Melbourne similarly showed a considerable gender pay gap in Indonesia, with women earning 42% less than their male counterparts.
(USD1 = IDR14,097)
