Beyond the Paycheque: Who Decides What Women’s Work Is Worth?
In Zimbabwe, the question of equal pay begins long before a woman receives a payslip.
It begins at the market stall where income rises and falls with daily sales; in the home, where hours of unpaid care can determine whether paid work is even possible; in the workplace, where salaries and promotions are negotiated; and in the boardroom or council chamber, where decisions about value and opportunity are made.
Equal pay is often understood simply as whether a woman earns the same salary as a man doing the same job. But Zimbabwe’s reality is far more layered.
A woman may have the same qualifications, sit at the same desk and hold the same job title as a man, yet still encounter inequalities in recruitment, starting salaries, promotion, bonuses, access to professional development and leadership opportunities. At the same time, she may carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care responsibilities outside the workplace.
Sometimes the inequality begins even earlier — in the occupations women are encouraged to pursue and in the economic value society attaches to those roles.
This is why International Equal Pay Day, marked globally on 18 September, matters for Zimbabwe. The conversation is about whether women’s skills, time, labour and contribution are valued equally.
As a nation, we have already committed to the principle of equal remuneration. The country ratified the International Labour Organization’s Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), in 1989, and its labour legislation affirms that men and women should receive equal remuneration for work of equal value. The principle is clear. We now need to turn that principle into measurable change in real workplaces, real incomes and real opportunities.
It is also important to distinguish between equal pay for equal work and equal pay for work of equal value. The latter is broader. It allows different occupations to be assessed using objective criteria such as skills, responsibility, effort and working conditions. This matters because it creates space to compare work traditionally performed by women with work traditionally performed by men, rather than assuming that existing wage hierarchies are neutral. The concern, therefore, is not limited to whether women and men receive the same pay for the same position. It also asks whether jobs largely performed by women are equally valued from the outset.
The ILO has expressed concern that Zimbabwe’s definition of “work of equal value”, which relies on work requiringsimilar or substantially similar skills and duties, could restrict broader comparisons between occupations dominated by men and those dominated by women. This distinction matters. When pay comparisons are confined to identical job titles, a wider issue can be missed: why certain forms of work are rewarded more highly than others, and who has the authority to make that judgment?
One way to understand how a society values women’s work is to examine who occupies decision-making spaces. Zimbabwe has made progress, but significant gaps remain. Women hold about 30% of seats in the National Assembly and 44% in the Senate. At ministerial level, women occupy 28% of positions. At local-government level, representation drops sharply, with women holding only 13% of elected deliberative positions.
The private sector tells a similar story. A 2025 UN Women baseline survey found women hold 20% of CEO roles and 25% of board seats, while in male-dominated fields such as construction, IT, mechanics and security, women represent just 10% of employees. World Bank data shows women’s share of senior and middle management stood at 34.4% in 2024.
These figures do not, on their own, prove a gender pay gap. But they reveal something important about the environment in which pay is determined. If women remain underrepresented in the spaces where salaries are negotiated, budgets are set, promotions are approved, and organisational priorities are decided, equal pay cannot be separated from equal access to power. Who has a seat at the table affects who has a voice in determining value.
Zimbabwe’s equal-pay conversation must also extend beyond Parliament, Cabinet and corporate boardrooms. Millions of women work in the informal economy, where income is irregular, and protections are limited. UN Women data shows that 91.6% of women’s non-agricultural employment is informal, compared with 74% for men. For many women, there is no salary, no written contract, no paid leave, no pension and no predictable monthly income.
Instead, there is a market stall, a small trading business, agricultural production, domestic work, casual labour or unpaid family work. This raises a difficult but necessary question: How do we value work that is economically essential but poorly protected, poorly measured or unpaid? If equal pay is ultimately about recognising the value of labour, then women working outside formal employment cannot be left outside the conversation.
I think one of the clearest examples of how women’s work is undervalued is unpaid care. Women disproportionately carry responsibility for cooking, cleaning, childcare, elder care and household management. This work may not appear on a payslip, but it affects a woman’s ability to earn one. Zimbabwe’s first nationally representative Time Use Survey, conducted in 2025, confirms persistent gender differences in how time is allocated, with women devoting significantly more time to unpaid domestic and caregiving responsibilities. Time is an economic resource.
A woman who spends several additional hours each day on unpaid care has less time available for paid work, business growth, training, networking, overtime or pursuing senior positions. The economic penalty can therefore begin long before a salary is negotiated. It can begin with something as fundamental as who is expected to care. Motherhood can compound this penalty through career interruptions, reduced working hours, limited mobility, inadequate childcare and assumptions about women’s availability and commitment to their careers. This means that an organisation may find that men and women in the same position receive the same salary, while women remain concentrated in lower-paid roles or are promoted more slowly.
The numbers may look equal. The system is not. This is where the conversation needs to move from principle to practice. Employers should conduct regular gender pay audits that look beyond basic salaries to include bonuses, allowances, benefits, overtime, starting salaries and promotion-related increases. Pay structures should be more transparent, with clear salary bands and objective criteria for recruitment, progression and promotion.
Jobs should be evaluated objectively, considering skills, responsibility, effort and working conditions rather than relying on historical assumptions about the value of particular roles.
The care economy also needs greater attention. Childcare, parental leave, flexible working arrangements and policies that support both women and men with family responsibilities can help reduce the unequal economic burden of care. And equal-pay efforts must extend beyond formal employment to women working in the informal economy — including domestic workers, traders, agricultural workers and small-business owners. Because equal pay will be difficult to sustain without equal voice, women’s representation in decision-making spaces matters too.
International Equal Pay Day should not become another date on the calendar for publishing graphics and statistics. It should be an opportunity to ask deeper questions. Who decides what a job is worth? Who gets promoted? Who negotiates salaries? Who controls budgets? Who carries unpaid care responsibilities? Which occupations are undervalued because they are dominated by women? And who is excluded from formal employment altogether? Perhaps the most important question is this: What would change if women’s work were treated as equally valuable from the beginning? Not only when a woman reaches the boardroom, but at every level of the economy.
Zimbabwe has already recognised the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value. The next step is to make that principle visible — in pay packets, promotion decisions, job classifications, leadership structures, employment policies and in the way unpaid and informal work are understood and measured. In addition to a woman earning the same amount of money as a man for doing the same job, equal pay is also about recognising that her skills have value, her time, labour and leadership have value.
As 18 September approaches, what is needed now is action — so that women’s work does not have to become extraordinary before society decides it is worth paying for.