NMX-R-025 — Mexico's National Standard for Labour Equality and Non-Discrimination

Mexico's large gender pay gap - INEGI's 2024 national household income and expenditure survey found women earn on average 34% less than men - forms the backdrop for a voluntary national workplace-equality standard created by the Labour Secretariat (STPS) together with the women's institute (then CONAPRED partner institutions), published in the Official Gazette on 19 October 2015 and effective from 18 December 2015.
The standard, NMX-R-025-SCFI-2015 on Labour Equality and Non-Discrimination, can certify any public, private or social work centre, of any size or sector, against 14 requirements worth up to 100 points, with 70 points needed to pass. The requirements cover gender-neutral recruitment, mobility and pay practices, prevention of workplace and gender-based violence and harassment, and work-life-family balance measures. Certification is delivered through accredited third-party certifying bodies, and certified work centres are listed on a national public registry maintained jointly by STPS and CONAPRED.
The government maintains this public National Registry of Certified Work Centres, and state governments (for example Puebla, reported in 2026) continue to publicise growing local certification counts, indicating ongoing nationwide uptake ten years after the standard took effect. However, at the time of this review, widely circulated figures for the total number of certified work centres and workers benefited could not be traced to a single citable, dated primary source, and no independent study isolating the standard's effect on Mexico's still very large (34%) national gender pay gap was found. This is a real, actively maintained national instrument, but its currently verifiable evidence base is limited to its structure and continued institutional operation rather than a measured reduction in pay or discrimination gaps.
As a formally codified national standard (NMX) with a fixed points rubric, it is directly replicable by any Mexican employer and offers a documented model that other national standards bodies could adapt, though no confirmed cross-border adoption was identified.

Read the full analysis: https://nmx.conapred.gob.mx/padron_nacional