UAE's Federal Equal Pay Law — Wage Equality in the Private Sector

In 2020, the United Arab Emirates issued Federal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2020, amending Article 32 of Federal Labour Law No. 8 of 1980, to require that women receive wages equal to men's for the same work or work of equal value. The amendment took effect on 25 September 2020 and tasked the Cabinet, on proposal from the Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation, with setting the procedures and standards for evaluating "work of equal value" so wage-setting is based on market and job criteria rather than gender.
Implementation has continued through the UAE Gender Balance Council (established 2015), which works with government and private-sector employers on practical tools for pay equity. In June 2025, the Council partnered with the World Bank to host an Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value workshop examining legal frameworks, job-evaluation methodologies and mechanisms to assess and close gender pay gaps across sectors.
Independent analysis complicates the picture: an Accenture study cited by the UK's CIPD in 2024 projected that, even under optimistic scenarios, the UAE's gender pay gap may not close before 2066. No government compliance or enforcement statistics on the 2020 decree have been published, so — despite the binding legal mandate — there is not yet public evidence that it has measurably narrowed the wage gap.

Read the full analysis: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/equal-pay-for-men-and-women-from-today-in-uae