The gender wage gap has been a persistent problem across nearly all professional sectors since the integration of women into the workforce. Unfortunately, this issue remains prevalent in many workplaces today, notably in orthodox societies with traditional views on gender roles, such as Belarus, where the unadjusted gender wage gap favors men by 26.8%.

In Belarusian society, women are often encouraged to pursue lower-risk jobs with standard working conditions and flexible hours, as they dedicate on average 19.2% of their time to unpaid domestic and care work, such as raising children. In contrast, their male counterparts have the freedom to choose professions with longer hours and higher remuneration as they spend only 9.5% of their time on these tasks. As a result of these lower wages and high familial expectations, female workers are more at risk of falling into poverty than male workers. 

Despite ranking at #55 out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum 2024 Global Gender Gap Index, Belarus is taking significant steps through legislation and internationally backed initiatives to climb the ladder and end discriminatory practices against women in the workplace. These are two key ways that Belarus is fighting against the gender wage gap.

International Aid Efforts

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is an international organization focused on supporting efforts for social and economic progress worldwide, currently working to improve women’s working conditions in Belarus. As a result of a partnership with UNICEF and the National Statistical Committee, the UNDP is now able to collect sex-disaggregated data, enabling it to find national solutions and track their progress in combating the gender wage gap. 

Progressive Legislation

In conjunction with these social efforts, Belarus has recently passed multiple pieces of legislation that are already producing positive results. 

In 2017, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus adopted the National Plan for Gender Equality. With the goal of developing a more gendered approach to public policy to level the professional playing field and empower women to hold more managerial positions, the action plan has been largely successful since its implementation. Not only do women possess more upper management positions than before, but they also make up 70% of the 69,000 cultural workers in Belarus as they work in the fields of media, education and culture.

In the National Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, a review in which the government presents answers to questions generated by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and UN Women, the Belarusian government explains that they have increased the salaries of employees in the women-dominated public sector. Although they do not give specific figures, professions such as teachers, medical workers and pharmaceutical professionals were the main beneficiaries and are expected to receive further salary augmentation before the end of 2025. This legislation seeks to close the gap between the salaries of these predominantly female professions and the predominantly male industrial professions in Belarus, who consistently earn far more than their female counterparts.

Political Arena

Women have also been rising to prominence in the political arena. Despite the rigid, male-dominated, autocratic regime, in both 2015 and 2020, multiple women were registered as single candidates in the presidential elections, signaling progression towards gender equality across many professions.

While the gender wage gap in Belarus is nowhere near eradicated, these progressive measures put in place by the government and international entities are positive steps towards gender equality in the workplace. These steps provide progressives and feminists across Belarus with cautious optimism. Despite the work that remains, feminist leader Irina Solomatina believes that “being a woman in Belarus is good,” as she hopes for future equality between genders in the workplace and, in turn, a lower risk of poverty for Belarusian women.

– Jack Schuchard

Jack is based in Herndon, VA, USA and focuses on Global Health and Politics for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons