Women are still earning less than men on average in Taiwan, a government survey showed.

In 2015, women earned an average of 14.5 percent less than men in terms of hourly salary, according to a gender workplace report released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.

The average hourly wage for women working in non-agricultural sectors was NT$253 in 2015, compared with NT$296 for men, the report said.

However, women did see average earnings increase by 21.1 percent from 2005 through 2015, a higher rate than men who posted only 13.8 percent growth in earnings over the same period, which contributed to a drop of 5.3 percent in the gender pay gap, the report said.

Men’s average hourly earnings were higher than women’s in most occupations, with the medical and healthcare sector seeing the widest gender pay gap of 44.4 percent, followed by 34.2 percent in the art, entertainment and recreation services sector, and 26.8 percent in the manufacturing industry.

Women earned more per hour on average in the support services, real-estate, water supply and pollution-control sectors, the report said.

Most women work in the customer services and sales sectors, accounting for 23.6 percent of the total, while about 20 percent work as technicians and clerical support workers, the report said.

Most men have engineering and technical jobs or work as machinery equipment operators and laborers, accounting for 42.4 percent of the total, it said.

[Taipei Times, 2017-07-10]