ADDIS ABABA – Gender labor income ratio has increased to 51.8 % and labor income grown by 53% in 2024, the International Labor Organization (ILO) announced.
In its 2024 labor report, ILO revealed that labor income per hour worked has grown by 53 % at the global level, even while the labor share declined due to multiple factors. Indeed, many have been studied in the economic literature, including changes in product markets, labor markets, capital markets, and globalization.
Substantial gender gaps in labor income are seen worldwide since the global ratio of women’s to men’s labor income was 46.8 % over the past decades. This implies that for each dollar that men earned in labor income, women earned only 47 cents, it said.
By 2024, the ratio increased to 51.8 %, reflecting modest progress. The ratio of labor income by gender reflects the relative importance of earnings from work, taking into account differentials in employment and in pay among the employed due to differences in hour worked, occupational profiles, and other factors, it added.
The ratio can be interpreted as the cumulative impact of compounding imbalances and inequities in the labor market. The global increase in women’s labor income masks wide regional differences. In 2024, the ratio of women’s to men’s labor income in the Arab States region is only 12.4 %, while Africa follows with a ratio of 34.7 %.
In 2024, the ratios for Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, and the Americas regions are 44.2, 61.9, and 64.7 % respectively. This reflects substantial progress from their 2005 levels, when they stood at 36.8, 53.9, and 54.0 % respectively.
Recent advances in artificial intelligence make the study of the role of technological change in determining the labor income share particularly relevant. Critically, the exercise that follows is not a simulation or a forecast about the impacts of AI. This is because even if recent progress in the AI field, such as the launch of ChatGPT, represents a technological breakthrough, the uncertainty concerning its economic impact is still very large, it stated.
Moreover, recent studies also point to technological factors, such as automation, being one of the key factors behind the long-run declines observed in the labor income share. As a complement to the empirical findings in the literature, it is useful to consider theoretical work, it was learnt.
BY STAFF REPORTER
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2024
