Chile's Equal Pay Law (Ley 20.348, 2009): Internal Wage Registries That Did Not Close the Gap

Enacted in June 2009, Chile's Ley 20.348 established a legal right to equal remuneration between men and women performing 'the same work' (el mismo trabajo) and required companies with 200 or more workers to maintain an internal registry (registro) of job positions and functions, effective from January 2010; firms with 10 or more workers must also run an internal grievance procedure — capped at 30 days — before any wage-discrimination claim can go to court.
Fifteen years on, the law is widely judged to have failed at closing Chile's gender pay gap. Labour-law academic Sergio Gamonal has called it outright 'terrible' for relying on outdated 'same work' language instead of the international 'equal value' standard, meaning employers can defeat a claim simply by giving a role a slightly different title. A 2024 Buk study found men still earn 27% more than women for identical work, while a separate 2024 Laborum study put the overall gap at 21.7% (18.8% in formal employment, 30.1% in informal work), with the gap in leadership roles reported as widening in 2023. Legal commentators also warn that Chile's mandatory 30-day internal complaint step, combined with weak protection against retaliation, discourages workers from ever filing.
Because the registry is internal and confidential rather than publicly disclosed, and because there are no proactive public reports comparable to Israel's or South Korea's, Chile's Congress is now debating a new 'Equidad Salarial' bill intended to replace this mechanism with mandatory pay-equity protocols and broader disclosure. This practice is included as a documented cautionary case: an early, well-intentioned transparency law whose narrow scope and lack of public disclosure limited its real-world effect.

Read the full analysis: https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/servicios/explicado/2024/03/09/que-dice-la-ley-de-igualdad-salarial-en-chile-y-que-tan-beneficiosa-es-realmente-para-las-mujeres.shtml