Wage inequality: glass ceiling

Jusan Analytics team decided to take a deeper dive into the issue of wage inequality. Recall that earlier we wrote about the gender pay gap by the end of 2022. This time we have considered how the average wage of men and women varies depending on their age. The analysis was carried out according to Jusan big-data in Almaty city for 2022.

It is worth noting that women outearn men at the beginning of their career path. Thus, the average wage of Almaty city female residents aged 20-25 years is higher than their peers by 11 thousand tenge. Then, the average wages of men increase by 3.5 times by the age of 26-30, while women’s growth is only 2.5 times. The wage gap reaches 62 thousand tenge in favour of men.

Women’s wages practically stop growing (~ 240 thousand tenge) when they are 25-40. Most likely, this is because most women go on maternity leave, after which they have to start their careers from the beginning. And following our calculations based on official statistics, the probability of a woman having 1 child begins to exceed 50% after the age of 23.

In general, the range of wages for the majority of Almaty city female residents (68.7%) is 146-470 thousand tenge. At the same time, the wage of the majority of Almaty city male residents (62.7%) varies from 123 to 1,223 thousand tenge.

Our analysis confirms the theory that there is a kind of “glass ceiling” for working women. It can be proved by many other factors, but in our opinion, the major ones are related to maternity leaves and the priority of choosing a job with a more flexible schedule to have time for household activities and children.