Equity Group says it will raise the salaries of women in a quest to bridge the difference between the pay of its female and male employees, which is skewed in favour of men.
The bank’s gender pay gap improved in 2023 where the average pay for men was 25 percent higher than women compared to a higher 32 percent in 2022 at the Group level.
The bank did not disclose the breakdown of pay parity at subsidiary level in 2023.
The move to raise women's pay is in the backdrop of disclosures from the lender which revealed sharp disparities in pay in 2022 where women in the Kenyan operations of the bank for instance earned 52 percent below men within the same positions in 2022.
The lender has identified key causes of the pay disparity within the group even as the mismatch closes in its latest disclosures.
“We are taking proactive measures to progressively address this disparity, including gender balanced shortlists at recruitment stage, internal equity salary adjustments during the salary review cycle and hiring more women in senior management levels,” the bank notes in its latest sustainability report released yesterday.
The gender pay gap in 2022 was the highest in the bank’s operations in Kenya and Tanzania at 52 percent while the discrepancy was narrower in the DRC, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda at 13, 22, 29 and 22 percent respectively.
Equity notes that the dominance of men in senior positions over the years has been the main driver of gender pay disparity.
“Key challenges in addressing this gap include the number of men in senior positions with longer service than their female colleagues in similar roles. In addition, some countries have more men in management levels of the organization structure than women,” Equity added.
Women made up about 41.3 percent of Equity Group’s entire workforce of 12,120 in 2023 or about 5,005 employees.
Female staff levels at the bank have been relatively unchanged with women making up about 41 percent of the lender’s workforce a year earlier or 4,842 employees.
Tanzania and Uganda have the highest proportion of female staff within the subsidiaries at a joint 49 percent while Sudan has the lowest complement at 31 percent.
Women made up about 27 percent of staff in the senior management of the bank in 2023, compared to 25 percent while 34.8 percent of women make up managerial staff at the bank.
