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Pay Gap Reporting

Mandatory gender and demographic pay gap reporting obligations, timelines, and public disclosure requirements

Why This Matters

Pay gap reporting creates accountability and drives organizational change by making wage disparities visible to stakeholders including employees, investors, customers, and regulators. Public disclosure of pay gaps creates reputational incentives for organizations to address inequities. The data collected through reporting helps identify patterns of discrimination, track progress over time, and benchmark against industry peers. Studies show that countries with mandatory reporting have seen significant reductions in gender pay gaps (7-13%) within the first five years of implementation.

How It's Measured

Pay gap reporting typically requires calculating median and mean pay differences between demographic groups (often gender, sometimes race/ethnicity). Organizations must analyze hourly pay, bonus pay, and representation across pay quartiles. Calculations follow specific methodologies defined by regulations (e.g., UK uses hourly rates for a snapshot date, EU Directive uses monthly/annual salary). Reports must be submitted to government portals and/or published publicly on company websites. Regulators track submission compliance, data quality, and year-over-year changes in gaps.

How to Comply & Mitigate Risk

To prepare for and improve pay gap metrics, organizations should: conduct regular pay equity audits using regression analysis to identify unexplained gaps, implement structured compensation frameworks with clear job leveling and salary bands, review and adjust starting salaries to eliminate bias, ensure equitable bonus and promotion processes, increase representation of underrepresented groups in higher-paying roles, provide transparency about career paths and compensation criteria, and set measurable targets for gap reduction. Remediation often requires multi-year action plans addressing both representational and pay-level disparities.

Common Requirements

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Annual gender pay gap reports

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Median and mean pay gap calculations

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Pay quartile distribution reporting

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Public disclosure requirements

Jurisdictions with Pay Gap Reporting Requirements

24 jurisdictions have legislation covering this topic area

Pay Gap Reporting

Why This Matters

How It's Measured

How to Comply & Mitigate Risk

Common Requirements

Jurisdictions with Pay Gap Reporting Requirements

Romania

Iceland

United Kingdom

Germany

France

Austria

Belgium

Netherlands

Sweden

Denmark

Portugal

Italy

Ireland

California (USA)

Canada (Federal)

Ontario (Canada)

British Columbia (Canada)

Australia

New Zealand

Japan

South Korea

Switzerland

Norway

Finland