Equal pay for equal work, and work of equal value is a priority for OECD countries. Pay inequality is consistently rated among the top three most pressing gender equality challenges by OECD governments – a prioritisation that has remained broadly unchanged since 2016, when the OECD first began surveying countries on their gender equality priorities. Yet considerable pay inequalities persist, with disadvantage accumulating over the life course.
Progress in closing the gender pay gap has been painfully slow. Full-time working women in the OECD still earn, on average, 90 cents to every dollar or euro earned by full-time working men. The average pay gap has declined by only nine percentage points (p.p.) since the 1990s. At the current pace of change, it would take decades more to close existing gaps.
Against this backdrop, pay transparency has emerged as a promising set of policy tools to accelerate progress. The appeal is intuitive: greater transparency supplies firms, workers and their representatives with information to advocate for equal pay. This firm-level focus is particularly important given that much of the pay gap is concentrated within firms.
The OECD has a longstanding body of work to support countries in assessing and addressing the causes and consequences of gender and pay inequality in labour markets, including on the use of pay transparency tools to improve pay equity and ensure equal opportunities. This report, produced with support from Italy’s National Institute for Public Policy Analysis (Istituto Nazionale per l’Analisi delle Politiche Pubbliche – INAPP) and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, is the third in the OECD’s stocktaking series on pay transparency, following Pay Transparency Tools to Close the Gender Wage Gap (2021) and Reporting Gender Pay Gaps in OECD Countries: Guidance for Pay Transparency Implementation, Monitoring and Reform (2023). This 2026 edition documents a policy landscape in progress and provides an updated overview of gender pay gap reporting, pay auditing and gender-neutral job evaluation and classification measures across OECD countries – with expansion of such measures largely driven by the EU Pay Transparency Directive. The report offers actionable guidance for governments introducing, implementing or reforming pay transparency tools. As most OECD countries expand and refine their systems in the coming years, concrete support, continuous evaluation and peer learning will be essential.
This report complements OECD efforts towards equal pay and opportunities in labour markets and beyond, including the 2025 OECD report Gender Equality in a Changing World: Taking Stock and Moving Forward, and will inform the monitoring of the 2013 OECD Recommendation on Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship, as well as the work conducted by the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC), a multistakeholder coalition led by the OECD, the International Labour Organization, and UN Women.