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Good practice Imported

British Columbia's Pay Transparency Act — Phased Wage-Gap Reporting

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Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 43% 74/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

BC's Pay Transparency Act requires salary ranges in all public job postings and phases in annual gender pay-gap reports for employers with 50+ staff by 2026; the province's median gender pay gap fell from 18% (2022) to 17% in the first reporting year.

18 %
BC median gender pay gap (2022)
17 %
BC median gender pay gap (first year of Act reporting)
16 %
Canada national median gender pay gap (comparison) (2022)
24 %
Earnings gap for racialized women in BC
British Columbia's Pay Transparency Act — Phased Wage-Gap Reporting

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Government of British Columbia — Gender Equity Office
Period
2023–present (phased implementation through November 2026)
Keywords
labour law, employment regulation, pay equity, public sector

Context

British Columbia's Pay Transparency Act, passed in 2023, requires all publicly advertised jobs to include a wage or salary range as of 1 November 2023, then phases in mandatory annual pay-gap reporting: the provincial government and its six largest Crown corporations first (November 2023), employers with 1,000+ staff from November 2024, 300+ staff from November 2025, and 50+ staff from November 2026.

Results

The province's Gender Equity Office reports BC's median gender pay gap was 18% in 2022, above Canada's 16% national average; the first year of reporting under the Act showed the gap narrowing to 17%. The largest gaps persist in agriculture/forestry/fishing, professional/scientific/technical services, and manufacturing, and racialized women in BC still earn roughly 24% less than men.

Conclusions

Because the reporting duty only reaches the smallest covered employers (50+ staff) in November 2026, the complete dataset needed to assess the Act's economy-wide effect is not yet available.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Government of British Columbia — Gender Equity Office

Conditions for success

  • mandatory wage/salary range disclosure on public job postings
  • phased reporting thresholds bringing progressively smaller employers into scope

Common failure modes

  • largest pay gaps persist in agriculture/forestry/fishing, professional/scientific/technical services and manufacturing
  • racialized women's pay gap (~24%) far exceeds the overall median
  • full economy-wide dataset unavailable until the smallest covered employers report from November 2026

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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