Observed annually on 18 September, International Equal Pay Day is a United Nations-recognised observance representing the longstanding efforts towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value.

The State of the Gender Pay Gap in 2025

Several recent reports show the gender pay gap remains significant, with only slow progress.

• Globally, women earn about 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, meaning a wage gap of roughly 23%.

• When measured without adjusting for job type, experience etc. (“uncontrolled” gap), the disparity is large: overall pay for women is about 83% of that of men.

• After controlling for factors such as role, qualifications, and location, the gap shrinks, but it does not disappear. Even in similar roles, women are still underpaid on average.

• In the United States, the median pay ratio for all workers is about 85%: women earn ~85 cents for every dollar men earn. Among younger workers (ages 25-34), the gap is smaller: women earn about 95 cents for every dollar earned by men of the same age group.

• Progress is slow: according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2025, it would take more than a century (estimated around 123 years) to close gaps in economic participation and opportunity at the current rate of change.

Key Contributing Factors & Structural Barriers

Some of the persistent drivers of inequality include:

• Occupational segregation: Women are overrepresented in lower-paid sectors (care work, informal economy) and underrepresented in higher-paying technical, leadership, or STEM roles.

• Career interruptions and caregiving responsibilities, particularly associated with motherhood, affect women’s earnings trajectory over time.

• Limited pay transparency and opaque recruiting/hiring/promotion practices, which make it harder to detect and correct unequal pay.

• Unconscious bias and discriminatory practices in evaluation, promotion, and compensation even when formal equality policies exist.

AltoPartners’ Insights & Role

AltoPartners has in its 2025 research underlined some valuable points:

• In “Accelerating Gender Parity: Recommendations for Executive Search and Hiring” (Jan 2025), AltoPartners highlighted that globally, women earn about 84% of what men earn on average. This aligns closely with other global metrics, showing the gap is narrowing, but not fast enough.

• That report emphasizes the importance of inclusive hiring, measurable goals for diversity, diversifying candidate pools, adopting gender-neutral job descriptions, and rethinking traditional leadership criteria.

• From earlier reporting (“Gender equality and women’s participation in the workforce – still a work in progress”), AltoPartners noted that even where female participation is relatively high, representation at senior levels remains low, and occupational segregation (women concentrated in lower-paid roles) persists.

What Must Change: Policy & Practice

To make meaningful progress toward pay equity, the following must happen:

1. Pay audits and transparency: Organisations should regularly audit pay, publish results (where possible), and provide clear paths for correcting disparities.

2. Redefining job value: Recognise work of “equal value” even when it’s in different sectors; ensure that roles traditionally dominated by women are not undervalued.

3. Support for caregiving: Flexible work, parental leave, childcare support—all reduce the earnings penalty associated with caregiving.

4. Leadership & pipeline interventions: Sponsorship, mentorship, inclusive leadership criteria, and targeted development for women in the middle levels can help reduce the drop-off toward senior roles.

5. Legislation & public policy: Enabling laws for equal pay, protections around discrimination, requirements for disclosure, and incentives for companies to improve.

6. Cultural change and bias reduction: Training, inclusive culture, challenging norms that privilege certain career paths or penalize breaks in employment.

International Equal Pay Day 2025 reminds us that despite progress, pay equity remains a distant goal. With women still earning between 77-84% of men’s pay on average, and full parity projected to take over a century at current rates, more urgent, systemic action is needed.

AltoPartners’ voices from 2025 show that anywhere from recruitment to leadership selection, from job design to policy frameworks, there are levers that organisations, and advisors like AltoPartners, can pull to help close the gap. The challenge moving forward is not just measurement, but commitment: sustained, visible, and measurable change across sectors and regions.