When we talk about South Africa’s gender pay gap, the conversation often starts with a payslip: does a woman earn less than a man doing the same job?
That is an important question, but it is not the whole question.
The bigger financial issue is what happens before a woman reaches the salary negotiation table. Which industry does she enter? Which occupation does she qualify for? Which employers are realistically within her reach? Can she move to a better-paying employer as her career develops? And what happens to her earning trajectory when family responsibilities compete with paid work?
A recent South African study using administrative tax data provides an important perspective. Researchers tracked millions of formal-sector workers and found that women earned, on average, 12% less than men. About 45% of this gap, equivalent to 5.5 percentage points, was associated with women being more likely to work for lower-paying companies.
That finding should change how we think about the gender pay gap.
It shows that the problem is not confined to what happens inside a particular company. It is also about who gets access to the better-paying parts of the labour market in the first place.
The study did not conclude that the remaining 55% of the gap represented direct pay discrimination. The data could not establish that. The unexplained portion could reflect differences between workers that were not captured as well as discrimination operating elsewhere in the labour market.
The lesson is clear: a career path is one of the biggest financial assets a person can have, and the forces shaping that path can have consequences for decades.
Where women work matters
South Africa’s labour market remains sharply divided along gender lines.
Stats SA’s latest labour-market data show that women accounted for 44 out of every 100 jobs. Women were particularly represented in personal services, accommodation, food and beverages and retail, while their representation was lowest in construction, mining, transport and storage and the motor trade.
Representation is not the same as pay, but the pattern matters because industries offer different opportunities for earnings, career progression and access to senior positions.
Occupation creates another divide. In the second quarter of 2026, clerical work accounted for 17% of employed women compared with 5.8% of employed men. Domestic work accounted for 10.8% of employed women but only 0.5% of employed men. Management positions were held by 7.1% of employed women compared with 10% of employed men.
“These divisions do not operate in isolation. Layered together, sector, occupation and employer can place workers on sharply different earnings paths, allowing disadvantage to accumulate from one level to the next,” says Prof Linda Meyer, MD of Rosebank International and Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela University.
The career ladder is not equal
The research found that women were about as likely as men to change employers, but their moves were less likely to take them to better-paying companies.
That matters because salary differences compound over time. A lower starting salary can mean smaller annual increases, lower retirement contributions and less money available for investments. The effect can therefore extend well beyond today's income and influence financial security later in life.
Career interruptions can make the problem more complicated.
Stats SA figures show that women accounted for 88.2% of people outside the labour force because of homemaking and family responsibilities. Time spent outside paid employment can mean lost income, slower career progression and reduced retirement savings.
The research does not prove that care responsibilities caused the widening earnings gap. But the timing and unequal distribution of unpaid care make it difficult to discuss women’s lifetime earnings without discussing who carries responsibility for families.
For women who return to employment after a career break, rebuilding professional networks, negotiating salaries and competing for senior positions can also create additional financial challenges.
Education is only part of the answer
Education can open doors to better-paid work, but different fields lead to different occupational pathways.
The latest DHET statistics show that men continued to outnumber women among graduates in fields including physical and computer sciences, manufacturing and engineering. Women were more strongly represented in areas such as education, business and management, and health and social services.
“Education alone doesn’t determine pay, but different fields of study open different occupational pathways. The labour-market divide is shaped by a series of connected pressures, not one free and isolated decision about which job to accept,” says Prof Meyer.
This does not mean women should be pushed towards particular careers simply because they may offer higher salaries. Rather, young women need access to accurate information about career prospects, earning potential and the long-term financial consequences of different employment pathways.
Equal pay is necessary, but not enough
South Africa needs effective equal-pay protections. Employers should be able to explain differences in remuneration, and unjustified differences for work that is the same, substantially the same or of equal value should not be tolerated.
But pay audits cannot solve every problem.
They can identify inequality inside a company, but they cannot explain why women remain less represented in certain industries, occupations and senior positions, or why their moves between employers may not deliver the same earnings gains as men's.
Closing the broader gap requires transparent remuneration, fair recruitment and promotion practices, access to skills development, affordable childcare and work arrangements that allow people to combine employment with family responsibilities.
For women, it also means treating career decisions as financial decisions. Salary is important, but so are retirement benefits, promotion prospects, flexibility, skills development and future earning potential.
The gender pay gap therefore starts long before the payslip.
If South Africa wants to narrow it, the focus must extend beyond whether women and men are paid differently in the same workplace. It must also examine whether women have an equal opportunity to enter, remain in and progress through the parts of the economy where earnings and wealth can grow.
For an individual woman, the financial stakes are significant. Every year of employment, every promotion, every salary increase and every retirement contribution can affect the amount of wealth she accumulates over her lifetime.
The question is therefore not simply whether women are being paid equally once they have secured a job. It is whether the labour market gives them an equal opportunity to build the earning power that eventually appears on the payslip.
THE NATIONAL