Asian Development Bank Gender Salary Gap Study

The Asian Development Bank has adopted internal practices aligned with its commitment to help its members achieve gender equality. This study analyzes panel data on its staff spanning 2000–2022 to understand gender differences in salaries and career paths of its three staff groups. A decomposition of gender pay differences reveals that this wage gap has narrowed for international staff, but has widened for local staff over time, in favor of men. While most of the salary gap of international staff and local staff in field offices can be explained by staff characteristics, this is not the case for local staff at headquarters. Analyses of career dynamics show that hiring practices have contributed significantly to the unexplained current earnings gap across all staff groups, while retention patterns appear to have helped close the gender pay gap across all staff groups. Gender policies adopted by the organization appear to have influenced these shifts.