Cambridge, UK, 24 November 2025 — Women working in organisations led by a woman chief executive tend to face smaller pay gaps than those working for a man, according to a new study of companies and non-profits working in the global health sector.
Closing the Gap? 2025 Analysis of Gender Pay Gaps in UK Organisations Active in Global Health, published by independent thinktank Global 50/50 finds that over the last eight years, the average gender pay gap — the difference in hourly earnings between men and women — is smaller for women working for a woman CEO than for those in similar roles working for a man.
Researchers looked at 45 private sector companies, non-profits, consultancies, faith-based and philanthropic organisations operating around the world but with a presence in the UK. They found the gender pay gap in organisations led by women CEOs for at least five of the past eight years will on average close sooner than in those led by men.
“Organisations led by women CEOs in the Global 50/50 sample are associated with smaller average gender pay gaps than those led by men,” says Dr Lynsey Robinson, Global 50/50’s health sector lead. “Although progress towards closing the gender pay gap is slow and uneven, these findings offer evidence that organisations with women leaders may be more likely to address structural pay inequalities.”
Findings welcomed by women CEOs
Global leaders have welcomed the findings. “In health research and policy, who leads determines whose knowledge counts and whose priorities shape the agenda,” says Dr Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). “When women lead, accountability and inclusion follow.”
“The report confirms what we see across our programs: when women lead, pay gaps shrink and organisations perform better,” adds Amie Batson, President of WomenLift Health. “Pay equity isn’t a side project, it’s a leadership choice. Investing in women leaders and the ecosystems around them builds cultures where everyone can thrive.”
Closing the Gap? looks at eight years of data and finds that organisations with women at the top report a gender pay gap on average 4.3 percent smaller than those led by men. However, Dr Robinson points out that overall in the UK, women still earned just 87p for every £1 paid to men in 2024, meaning that women effectively worked for free from 14 November until the end of the year.
“We know that what gets measured gets prioritised. This report reminds us that transparency is power: when organisations report, analyse and act on gender pay gaps, they take a stand for fairness. Data must be the starting point for policies that dismantle barriers to women’s leadership and drive genuine gender justice at work,” says Dr Ravi Verma, executive director of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW Asia).
Beyond compliance
Global 50/50 also point out that the “significant relationship between the gender of the CEO and the size of the gender pay gap is particularly important for organisations active in global health, where men continue to hold positions of power and decision-making.” The 2025 Global 50/50 report found that fewer than 40 percent of non-profits and just 22 percent of private sector companies active in global health are led by women.
“The gender pay gap is the outcome of deeply embedded and gendered social, cultural and economic structures,” says Dr Robinson. “These structures shape career pathways across the life course, influencing who has access to education and training, recruitment and promotion practices, and how different types of work are valued. Closing the gender pay gap reflects the kind of leadership and culture an organisation chooses to uphold.”
Call for global action
The report also calls for mandatory pay gap reporting across the globe — although UK companies with more than 250 staff have been required by law to publish annual gender pay gap data, currently only 35 other countries have comparable pay transparency or reporting mechanisms.
“Mandatory reporting helps to close the gap, and it provides invaluable guidance and resources that can equip organisations to close their pay gaps,” says Dr Magda Robalo Correia e Silva, interim executive director of Women in Global Health. “It is time to make pay transparency the norm, not the exception.”
Urgent need for gender pay justice
Global 50/50 released their findings following UK Equal Pay Day — which this year fell on 22 November — “in a context marked by a backlash against gender justice and evidence of increasingly regressive views about women’s roles and leadership” in order to highlight the “urgent need for a continued commitment to gender justice, fairness and equity across all levels of the global health sector, ensuring that women’s leadership is supported and championed.”