{"id":837620,"date":"2025-09-16T08:35:47","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T06:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=837620"},"modified":"2025-09-16T08:35:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T06:35:51","slug":"african-workers-speak-up-pay-feels-fairer-but-gender-gaps-persist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/837620\/african-workers-speak-up-pay-feels-fairer-but-gender-gaps-persist\/","title":{"rendered":"African workers speak up \u2013 Pay feels fairer, but gender gaps persist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Significant progress has been made towards pay equality in Africa, especially in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, many people \u2013 especially women \u2013 say they are still paid unfairly, and certain regions face much higher levels of discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is according to ADP\u2019s Global Workforce View survey of almost 38,000 workers across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adpresearch.com\/assets\/summary-of-people-at-work-2024-a-global-workforce-view\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=September+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to download the ADP Global Workforce View 2024.<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The report showed that 22% of workers in the Middle East and Africa say they are not fairly paid, which is one of the lowest levels globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, a deeper analysis reveals discrepancies, particularly when you consider specific factors beyond geographical regions \u2013 like age, company rank, gender, and industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is incredibly important for employers, because workers who feel unfairly paid are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Less likely to be engaged<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Less resilient<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Less trusting of leadership<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>More likely to quit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>To look at it another way, only 9% of disengaged workers say their pay is fair, compared to 22% of fully engaged employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This sense of fairness rises even more among those who trust leadership, and jumps significantly for employees who received a raise in the past year \u2013 they\u2019re 2.3x more likely to feel fairly compensated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These patterns occur across age and gender, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Age and gender<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The ADP survey showed optimistic numbers among younger African workers, as only 23% of women and 18% of men aged 18-26 felt underpaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number rose with age, as 34% of women aged 55-64 felt underpaid. Globally, 28% of women said their pay was unfair, compared to 23% of men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was an interesting exception, with only 21% of South African women saying their pay was unfair, compared to 24% of men. This polarity held true in Nigeria and Egypt, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the overall trend is clear \u2013 <strong>women feel they experience unfair pay more than men do.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Women also felt more unfairly paid than their male colleagues in many industries across Africa, especially education, health care, and hospitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Industry and business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>An interesting trend appeared in education and healthcare (female-dominated workforces) \u2013 pay dissatisfaction was incredibly high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Education:<\/strong> 40% of women felt unfairly paid, compared to 32% of men.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Healthcare:<\/strong> 39% of women said the same, versus 30% of men.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The gaps were smaller in more male-dominated sectors like mining and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn\u2019t just industry-dependent, though. The level of an employee within an organisation played a significant role in how they viewed their pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the top (C-level), only 13% of leaders felt unfairly paid, while 34% of individual contributors felt the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report also showed that the gender pay perception gap remained even at the higher levels \u2013 although the gap was noticeably narrower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Frontline workers and mid-level managers in South Africa were also far more likely to feel underpaid than those in executive roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The bottom line<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The report found that overall, African employers are making progress, but pay perception still matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, closing gender and role-based gaps isn\u2019t just about equity \u2013 it\u2019s a strategic advantage in keeping talent engaged and committed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adpresearch.com\/assets\/summary-of-people-at-work-2024-a-global-workforce-view\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=September+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to download the ADP Global Workforce View 2024.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Positive progress towards pay equality has been made, but concerning gaps remain, according to the 2024 ADP Global Workforce View survey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":837621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[17745,23609,10865],"class_list":["post-837620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-adp","tag-gender-gaps","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837642,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837620\/revisions\/837642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}