Georgia’s Gender Pay Gap: Why Women Earn 33% Less — and What the Law Fails to Fix

Georgia has one of the highest gender pay gaps in the Eastern Partnership region. Women earn on average 33% less than men — a gap that has not narrowed in a decade despite strong economic growth. This analysis examines the structural causes, the legislative gaps, and what evidence-based policy can do.

What Is Georgia’s Gender Pay Gap in 2024?

According to the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), women in Georgia earned an average of GEL 1,840 per month in 2024, compared to GEL 2,750 for men — an unadjusted gender pay gap (GPG) of 33%.^[1] This figure has remained between 33% and 36% for the entire period 2015–2024, with no statistically significant trend of convergence in the Geostat Labour Force Survey (LFS) time series.^[1]

How Does Georgia Compare to the EU?

The EU-27 average unadjusted gender pay gap is 12.7%, according to Eurostat (2023).^[3] Georgia’s 33% gap is more than twice the EU average and places it among the highest in the Eastern Partnership region, where comparable countries record gaps of 24–28%.^[4] The ILO’s Global Wage Report 2022–23 specifically identifies the EaP subregion — and Georgia as a case study within it — as an area where pay gap reduction has stalled despite macroeconomic gains.^[5]

What Is the Adjusted Gender Pay Gap in Georgia?

The adjusted GPG — which controls for sector, occupation, hours worked, education, and experience, capturing discrimination in the narrow sense — is estimated at approximately 20–21% for Georgia, based on Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of LFS microdata.^[2] Even this adjusted figure is well above the EU adjusted average of approximately 5%. The gap between the unadjusted (33%) and adjusted (21%) measures indicates that roughly one-third of the total gap is explained by occupational and sectoral sorting — itself a product of structural inequality, not neutral choice.

Why Is the Gender Pay Gap So High in Georgia?

The Georgian GPG is driven by three interacting structural factors, consistent with ILO decomposition methodology applied in comparable transition economies.^[5]

1. Occupational Segregation: Women Work in Lower-Paid Sectors

Women in Georgia are heavily concentrated in healthcare, education, and social services — sectors that are systematically undervalued relative to male-dominated sectors of equivalent skill complexity. Geostat LFS 2024 data show that 78% of healthcare and social work employees are female, yet average female monthly wages in that sector (GEL 1,180) are 32% below the cross-sector female average.^[1] This pattern reflects the Treiman-Hartmann hypothesis of “comparable worth” undervaluation, documented across multiple ILO country studies.^[6] See also: GILS Gender Pay Gap Data Tool.

2. Vertical Segregation: Women Are Excluded from Senior Roles

Even within sectors, women are significantly underrepresented in senior and managerial positions. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023 ranks Georgia 96th out of 146 countries on economic participation and opportunity, with particularly low scores on wage equality and legislative provision.^[7]

3. Informal Employment: Women Bear the Largest Burden

Georgia’s informal employment rate stood at 37.1% in 2023 (Geostat LFS), with women disproportionately represented in subsistence agriculture and unregistered trade.^[1] These categories carry no statutory wage protection, no collective bargaining access, and no social security entitlement. The ILO estimates that informal employment suppresses female effective earnings by an additional 8–12% beyond the formal sector gap.^[8] For full data, see: GILS Informal Economy Analysis.

Does Georgian Law Protect Equal Pay?

What Laws Exist on Gender Pay Equality in Georgia?

Georgia has two primary legal instruments:

• The Law of Georgia on Gender Equality (2010, as amended 2020) mandates equal remuneration for work of equal value and establishes the parliamentary Gender Equality Council as the primary oversight body.^[9]
• The Law of Georgia on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (2014) prohibits pay discrimination on grounds of sex and provides for individual complaint mechanisms before the Public Defender (Ombudsman).^[10]

Why Is Pay Discrimination Law Not Being Enforced?

Despite these statutory provisions, enforcement data are negligible. The Labour Inspection Department recorded zero proactive investigations into systematic gender-based pay discrimination in 2022 or 2023, according to its published annual reports.^[11] Individual complaint volumes to the Public Defender average fewer than 10 per year — a figure inconsistent with the scale of the measured gap and indicative of structural under-reporting rather than the absence of discrimination.^[12]

What Is Missing: Pay Transparency

A critical structural gap is the absence of mandatory pay transparency. The EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970), which requires employers to publish wage data disaggregated by sex, has no equivalent in Georgian law.^[13] As Georgia’s EU candidacy — formally granted in December 2023 — advances toward accession negotiations, legislative alignment in this domain will become a concrete requirement.^[14] See: GILS Legislative Analysis: Anti-Discrimination Law.

GILS Policy Position: Three Immediate Measures

The Georgian Institute of Labour Studies considers the 33% unadjusted GPG a systemic labour market failure with measurable consequences for household welfare, pension adequacy, and human capital formation. Fifteen years of economic growth have not moved the needle. The evidence base supports three specific legislative actions:

1. Grant the Labour Inspection Department explicit statutory authority to conduct proactive, sector-wide pay audits without requiring an individual complaint — consistent with ILO Convention No. 100 on Equal Remuneration (ratified by Georgia 1993).^[15]
2. Introduce mandatory gender pay reporting for employers with more than 50 employees, requiring annual publication of average wages disaggregated by sex, following the EU Pay Transparency Directive model.^[13]
3. Adopt a gender pay equity protocol in the Tripartite Social Partnership Commission, establishing sector-specific benchmarks as part of the national wage policy framework. See: GILS Social Dialogue Analysis.

The legislative tools exist. Enforcement capacity requires strengthening. Pay transparency infrastructure requires construction from the ground up. Until these conditions are met, Georgia’s 33% gender pay gap will remain both a domestic equity failure and a barrier to EU convergence.

Access the full GILS Gender Pay Gap Data Tool →