The payment divide: Women in India make on-average 16 per cent less than men

According to the Korn Ferry Gender Pay Index, women across the globe make on-average 16.1 percent less than men.

However, the pay gap becomes much smaller while analysing same job level, same company, same function. Globally, while considering the same level at the same company, the gap further reduced to 1.5 percent.

And when the male and female employees were at the same level and the same company and worked in the same function, the average gap amounted to 0.5 percent.

In India, when evaluating the same job level, the gap is 4 percent, and when considering the same level at the same company, the gap fell to 0. 4 percent.

When male and female employees at the same level and the same company worked in the same function, the gap fell to 0.2 percent.

Researchers analysed information from Korn Ferry's pay database to create the Korn Ferry Gender Pay Index. The Index is an analysis of gender and pay for more than 12.3 million employees in 14,284 companies in 53 countries across the globe.

"While there are still a number of organisations that pay women less for the same role, on average, when we compared women and men in the same job, the gap is significantly reduced," said Bob Wesselkamper, Korn Ferry head of Rewards and Benefits Solutions.

Wesselkamper further noted that this pay gap issue can be remedied if organisations address pay parity across the organisation and continue to strive to increase the percentage of women in the best-paying parts of the labour market, including the most senior roles and functions such as engineering and other technical disciplines.

The gender pay-gap in India is more than China, which stood at 12.1 percent. The pay gap in some of the representative nations like Brazil stood at 26.2 percent, France 14.1 percent, Germany 16.8 percent, the UK 23.8 percent and the US 17. 6 percent.

“Pay parity is still a very real issue, but it's an issue that can be addressed if there is an ongoing effort to enable, encourage and select talented women to take on and thrive in challenging roles,” said Reena Wahi, Client Partner, Korn Ferry Hay Group.