Women living in both developed and developing nations face largely similar challenges when it comes to gender equality in the workplace, new research from the World Bank has shown.
The World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development showed that the overall wage gap is largely consistent regardless of a country's economic growth – women still tend to earn between ten and 30 per cent less than men whether they hail from a rich or poor nation.
Furthermore, the World Bank research shows that women, regardless of their country of residence, tend to cluster in similar sorts of occupations – statistics compiled from Mexico, Sweden and Bangladesh indicate that retail, communications and public administration tend to be female-focused sectors.
Meanwhile, men tend to dominate the construction, mining and transport sectors.
Earlier this month, sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick highlighted that the pay gap between male and female workers in Australia stands at 17.2 per cent.
This means, she explained, that women in Australia earn around $0.83 for every dollar a man earns.
She said: "Women will have to work 63 extra days to gain the same amount of pay this year."