Money

The Smallest Gender Wage Gaps in OECD Countries

Published

3 weeks ago

April 11, 2024

Julia Wendling

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

The Smallest Gender Pay Gaps in OECD Countries

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Among the 38 member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), several have made significant strides in addressing income inequality between men and women.

In this graphic we’ve ranked the OECD countries with the 10 smallest gender pay gaps, using the latest data from the OECD for 2022.

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between median full-time earnings for men and women divided by the median full-time earnings of men.

Which Countries Have the Smallest Gender Pay Gaps?

Luxembourg’s gender pay gap is the lowest among OECD members at only 0.4%—well below the OECD average of 11.6%.

Rank	Country	Percentage Difference in Men's & Women's Full-time Earnings
1	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	0.4%
2	🇧🇪 Belgium	1.1%
3	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	1.4%
4	🇨🇴 Colombia	1.9%
5	🇮🇪 Ireland	2.0%
6	🇭🇷 Croatia	3.2%
7	🇮🇹 Italy	3.3%
8	🇳🇴 Norway	4.5%
9	🇩🇰 Denmark	5.8%
10	🇵🇹 Portugal	6.1%
	OECD Average	11.6%

Notably, eight of the top 10 countries with the smallest gender pay gaps are located in Europe, as labor equality laws designed to target gender differences have begun to pay off.

The two other countries that made the list were Costa Rica (1.4%) and Colombia (1.9%), which came in third and fourth place, respectively.

How Did Luxembourg (Nearly) Eliminate its Gender Wage Gap?

Luxembourg’s virtually-non-existent gender wage gap in 2020 can be traced back to its diligent efforts to prioritize equal pay. Since 2016, firms that have not complied with the Labor Code’s equal pay laws have been subjected to penalizing fines ranging from €251 to €25,000.

Higher female education rates also contribute to the diminishing pay gap, with Luxembourg tied for first in the educational attainment rankings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index Report for 2023.

See More Graphics about Demographics and Money

While these 10 countries are well below the OECD’s average gender pay gap of 11.6%, many OECD member countries including the U.S. are significantly above the average. To see the full list of the top 10 OECD countries with the largest gender pay gaps, check out this visualization.

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Economy

Ranked: The Top 20 Countries in Debt to China

The 20 nations featured in this graphic each owe billions in debt to China, posing concerns for their economic future.

Published

2 days ago

April 29, 2024

Marcus Lu

Ranked: The Top 20 Countries in Debt to China

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we ranked the top 20 countries by their amount of debt to China. These figures are as of 2022, and come from the World Bank (accessed via Yahoo Finance).

The data used to make this graphic can be found in the table below.

Country	Total external debt to China ($B)
🇵🇰 Pakistan	$26.6
🇦🇴 Angola	$21.0
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	$8.9
🇪🇹 Ethiopia	$6.8
🇰🇪 Kenya	$6.7
🇧🇩 Bangladesh	$6.1
🇿🇲 Zambia	$6.1
🇱🇦 Laos	$5.3
🇪🇬 Egypt	$5.2
🇳🇬 Nigeria	$4.3
🇪🇨 Ecuador	$4.1
🇰🇭 Cambodia	$4.0
🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire	$3.9
🇧🇾 Belarus	$3.9
🇨🇲 Cameroon	$3.8
🇧🇷 Brazil	$3.4
🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo	$3.4
🇿🇦 South Africa	$3.4
🇲🇳 Mongolia	$3.0
🇦🇷 Argentina	$2.9

This dataset highlights Pakistan and Angola as having the largest debts to China by a wide margin. Both countries have taken billions in loans from China for various infrastructure and energy projects.

Critically, both countries have also struggled to manage their debt burdens. In February 2024, China extended the maturity of a $2 billion loan to Pakistan.

Soon after in March 2024, Angola negotiated a lower monthly debt payment with its biggest Chinese creditor, China Development Bank (CDB).

Could China be in Trouble?

China has provided developing countries with over $1 trillion in committed funding through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive economic development project aimed at enhancing trade between China and countries across Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Many believe that this lending spree could be an issue in the near future.

According to a 2023 report by AidData, 80% of these loans involve countries in financial distress, raising concerns about whether participating nations will ever be able to repay their debts.

While China claims the BRI is a driver of global development, critics in the West have long warned that the BRI employs debt-trap diplomacy, a tactic where one country uses loans to gain influence over another.

Editor’s note: The debt shown in this visualization focuses only on direct external debt, and does not include publicly-traded, liquid, debt securities like bonds. Furthermore, it’s worth noting the World Bank data excludes some countries with data accuracy or reporting issues, such as Venezuela.