Women earn 19.4% less than men in Brazil. This is what the 1st National Salary Transparency and Remuneration Criteria Report shows. The data was released this Monday (25) by the Ministries of Women and Labor and Employment (MTE).
The report was consolidated based on information filled in on eSocial, the federal system for collecting labor, social security and tax information. In total, 49,587 companies with 100 or more employees in Brazil filled out the information for 2022. The objective of this document is to make known the remuneration reality of workers in companies and their incentive policies for hiring and promotion from a gender perspective. And this first report confirmed the wage inequality between women and men.
The national report presents national data on average remuneration and median contractual salary for women and men, in addition to the realities in each unit of the federation, the reality of salaries by race/color and by major occupational groups.
The requirement to send data complies with Law No. 14,611/2023, which deals with Equal Pay and Remuneration Criteria between Women and Men, sanctioned in July 2023. Private companies with 100 or more employees that do not submit data for the Report of Salary Transparency and Remuneration Criteria twice a year will be subject to a fine.
Data
The national report shows that of the total number of establishments with 100 or more employees that sent information (49,587), 73% (36 thousand) of them have existed for 10 years or more. Together, they total almost 17.7 million employees with formal employment contracts, which is equivalent to 41.6% of the total.
Although women receive, on average, 19.4% less than men, the salary difference can vary even more, depending on the major occupational group. In positions of directors and managers, for example, the difference in pay reaches 25.2%.
The Ministry of Women highlights that in the report's breakdown by race/color, black women, in addition to being fewer in the job market (2,987,559 jobs, 16.9% of the total), are those with the most unequal income .
While the average salary for black women is R$3,040.89, corresponding to 68% of the average salary for non-black men, it is R$5,718.40 — 27.9% higher than the average. Black women also earn 66.7% of the wages of non-black women.
If the average hiring salary for black women is considered (R$ 1,566.00), the remuneration corresponds to 82% of the average starting salary (R$ 1,901.00). But when compared to the starting salaries of non-Black men, they receive 19% more than the average total hiring salary.
Remuneration criteria
The national report shows that around half of the companies (51.6%) have job and salary plans or career plans, and that a large proportion of them adopt remuneration criteria such as proactivity (81.6%); ability to work in a team (78.4%); length of experience (76.2%); achievement of production targets (60.9%); availability of people in specific occupations (28%); overtime (17.5%).
The Ministry of Women notes that overtime, availability for work, production targets, among other criteria, are achieved more by men than by women. The explanation is that workers generally have interruptions in their working hours due to maternity leave and dedication to caring for children and people dependent on them, such as the elderly and people with disabilities (PwD).
Hiring, retention and professional advancement
Only 32.6% of companies have policies encouraging the hiring of women. The percentage is even lower if we consider the incentives for diversity within companies for specific groups of women: black women (26.4%); women with disabilities (23.3%); LBTQIAP+ (20.6%); female heads of household (22.4%); women victims of violence (5.4%).
Specifically for management and management positions, only 38.3% of employers declared that they adopt policies for women's professional advancement.
Other data indicate that few companies still adopt policies such as flexible working arrangements to support parenting (39.7%), extended maternity/paternity leave (17.7%) and daycare allowance (21.4%).
States
According to the report, São Paulo concentrates 33% of the establishments participating in the report, with a total of 16,536 employers. The state also has the highest number of women with a formal contract: 2.6 million or 14.7% of total employment contracts. Acre (44.4%), Rio Grande do Sul (43.3%), Santa Catarina (42.7%) and Amapá (42.7%) have the highest proportions of CLT women working.
The survey data also showed differences in pay between women and men by federation units. In 2022, the Federal District was the unit of the Federation with the lowest salary inequality between men and women. In the federal capital, they receive 8% less than them, in a universe of 1,010 companies that, in total, employ 462 thousand people. The average salary in the DF is R$6,326.24.
Women in São Paulo receive 19.1% less than men, similar to the national average inequality (19.4%). The average salary is R$5,387 in the Southeast state. The federation units with the lowest average salaries are Sergipe (R$ 2,975.77) and Piauí (R$ 2,845.85).
Next steps
The 49,587 companies that filled out data for the salary transparency report have until Sunday (31) to disclose the company's own salary transparency report to their employees, workers and the general public. The document was made available individually by company by the Ministry of Labor and Employment (TEM), on Thursday (21) on the Emprega Brasil Portal and can be accessed by logging in with the employer's CNPJ and password.
The legislation determines that this report must be published on the companies' own website, on their social networks and physically in a visible location for wide dissemination. Companies that do not make the information in the report public will be subject to a fine of 3% of the total payroll value, limited to 100 minimum wages.
Companies with a duly identified salary difference will be notified by the MTE and will have 90 days to prepare an Action Plan to Mitigate Inequality in Salary and Remuneration Criteria, with the participation of representatives of trade unions and employees. The objective is to reduce unjustified pay differences.
Other spaces
Reports of wage inequality can be made through the Digital Work Card on the website or smartphone application developed by the Ministry of Labor and Employment on Android and iOS systems. First, you need to access the federal government's digital services portal, Gov.br.
To clarify any doubts about the law, the Ministry of Women, in partnership with the Ministry of Labor and Employment, launched this Monday (25), the Doubt Clearing Booklet: Law of Equal Pay and Remuneration Criteria between Women and Men with information aimed at workers and employers. The information is from Agência Brasil.
