Gender Pay Gap Widens in Georgia Despite Legal Reforms

According to recent data from the National Statistics Office (Geostat), women in Georgia continue to earn significantly less than men.

The new data, quoted by BPN, show that in the second quarter of 2025, women’s average monthly pay was 1,769.5 lari (about USD 645), compared to 2,655.8 lari for men; a difference of 33.3 percent, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.

The gap widened slightly from last year, when the difference stood at about 31 percent. In almost every sector of the economy, men earned more than women, according to the report.

While the gender pay gap is far from unique to Georgia, the country remains among those with some of the widest disparities in Europe and Central Asia. Globally, the World Bank estimates that women earn about 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, meaning men’s hourly pay is roughly 23 percent higher on average.

Nana Bendeliani, the representative of UN Women in Georgia, told BPN the new figures suggest the pay gap may be rising again after several years of modest improvement. “The fact that the difference reached 33 percent this year indicates that the trend may once again be upward,” she said.

Bendeliani explained that the current figures represent “unadjusted” pay differences, raw averages across all industries, and that even the “adjusted” data, which take into account job type and position, show significant inequality. “Whichever method we use, the results point to direct discrimination, when a woman is paid less than a man for the same work simply because she is a woman,” she said.

She added that systemic discrimination also plays a role, as many of the sectors with a high share of women workers, such as education, healthcare, and social services, tend to offer lower pay overall. “These are feminized professions, and the lower wages reflect deep-rooted inequality in how the labor market values women’s work,” Bendeliani said.

Although Georgia’s Labor Code has banned unequal pay for equal work since 2020, enforcement remains weak. According to Bendeliani, the Labor Inspection Office has received no complaints about gender-based pay discrimination and has not conducted any reviews on its own initiative.

UN Women argues that meaningful progress will require stronger oversight and more robust policies to ensure equal pay for work of equal value. Bendeliani said one way to narrow the gap could be by raising the national minimum wage.