The 2010 Gender Equality Law and its 2020 amendments create comprehensive formal obligations — none of which are routinely enforced.
Georgia’s Law on Gender Equality was adopted in 2010, amended significantly in 2020, and sits within a broader legislative framework that includes the Law on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (2014) and the Labour Code provisions on non-discrimination. On paper, this framework is comprehensive. It prohibits pay discrimination on grounds of sex, requires employers to take reasonable measures to prevent sexual harassment, mandates gender-balanced representation on public bodies, and establishes an institutional mechanism — the Human Rights Department of the Parliament of Georgia, together with the Public Defender’s Office — for monitoring and enforcement.
In practice, the enforcement record is minimal. The Public Defender’s Office receives approximately 300–400 complaints of discrimination per year, of which fewer than 15 percent relate to employment discrimination on grounds of sex. Of those, the great majority are resolved through mediation or recommendation — the Defender has no power to impose sanctions and can only recommend that employers take corrective action. Employers who ignore recommendations face no penalty. The few cases that have reached administrative tribunals have produced outcomes — fines, remediation orders — that have not been publicised and appear not to have been systematically collected or reported.
The Labour Inspection Service, which gained strengthened powers in 2020, has authority to investigate workplaces for compliance with non-discrimination provisions. But inspection resources are concentrated on occupational safety and employment contract compliance, where the risk of physical harm is most immediate and the legal liability most clear. Gender pay audits — a routine feature of labour inspection in Scandinavian countries and increasingly in EU member states — do not exist in Georgia. No inspection methodology for identifying and documenting gender-based pay discrimination has been developed or published.
The gap between law and practice is widest in the private sector. Public sector employers — ministries, state agencies, schools, hospitals — are at least nominally subject to parliamentary oversight and the Public Defender’s monitoring function. Private sector employers, particularly small and medium enterprises that account for the majority of Georgian employment, operate in an environment of near-complete non-enforcement. The 33 percent gender pay gap that GILS has documented is concentrated in the private sector; the public sector gap, while present, is materially smaller.
The EU’s Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025, with which Georgia is expected to align as part of the accession process, includes mandatory pay transparency requirements that would represent a significant advance on current Georgian practice. EU member states are required to implement binding pay transparency measures — including the right of employees to information on pay levels by sex and job category — by June 2026. Georgia’s alignment with this requirement will be a specific item in accession screening.
GILS Position: The formal legal framework for gender equality in Georgian employment is adequate. What is missing is enforcement infrastructure, specifically: a gender pay audit methodology and training programme for Labour Inspectors; a pay transparency mechanism for private sector employers above a defined employment threshold; and a dedicated unit within the Public Defender’s Office with dedicated capacity and budget for employment discrimination cases.
The law exists. Making it work requires investment in the institutions that can give it meaning.
Read the full GILS analysis: https://labour.edu.ge/law-gender-equality/