The average hourly wages for women lagged behind that of men by 14 percent last year, the same as the previous year, the Ministry of Labor said on Thursday.

Last year, the nation’s working women made an average of NT$271 per hour, while men made NT$315, the ministry said.

The figure indicates that women on average have to work 52 extra days to earn the same wages as men, placing the equal pay day on Feb. 21 this year, it said.

The equal pay day is a symbolic date that symbolizes gender income inequality by showing how far into the following year women have to work to earn equal pay.

Overall, Taiwan has been closing the gender pay gap over the past decade from 18.2 percent in 2007 to 14 percent last year, the ministry said.

The gender pay gap is affected by a variety of factors in addition to outright discrimination, it said, adding that bias can result from the quality of employment opportunities, educational attainment, seniority and performance review.

In recent years, the nation’s gender income inequality has been less acute than that in the US, Japan and South Korea, the ministry said.

In Japan the pay gap is 31.9 percent and in the US it was 18.2 percent last year, while in South Korea it was 35.4 percent in 2016, it said.

However, Japan has reduced the pay gap by 4.7 points in the past decade, which is better than the progress made in Taiwan (4.2 points), South Korea (3.6 points) and the US (1.6 points), the ministry said.

[Taipei Times, 2018-03-03]