The Gender Pay Gap in Qatar: Challenges and Future Prospects

Wage differentiation between women and men is not limited to a certain region or ethnicity, the distinction extends globally, including the most developed countries in the world. In Qatar, figures at the local level still show that males receive a higher rate of wages than females despite their classification in one level of education with similar skills. The research listed a certain set of global causes on this problem such as culture, religion, and personal attributes of the females. In addition, the research presented and discussed a new approach about the outcome of this pay gap and its impact on the female employees’ social well-being, motivation, and satisfaction. The research distributed a questionnaire to 149 female employees in the public health sector in Qatar. The research also conducted four in-depth interviews with female executives from the same sector. The results were very compatible with the existing literature about the issue of gender pay gap. The major finding and difference from other literature is the fact that in Qatar, the gender pay gap is built on two major causes, the culture, and the wrong interpretation of some religious laws. Two of the three hypotheses presented by the study were supported (FES: Female Employee Satisfaction and FEM: Female Employee Motivation) while the indicators for the third hypotheses (SWB: Societal Well-Being) were statistically insignificant which was slightly challenging since all existing literature suggests a strong negative relationship between gender pay gap and female social well-being. Accordingly, the research suggested for future studies to adapt different indicators to measure the social well-being and include more sectors in the study. The research provided theoretical implications considering the findings of the study and its comparison to the existing literatures. The research also provided a set of managerial implications which can benefit human resources experts.