India's Code on Wages guarantees equal pay for the same work or work of a similar nature — not the broader equal-value standard — and prescribes no job-evaluation method. India has ratified ILO Convention 100, leaving a gap between treaty and domestic law.
India's wage-equality guarantee now lives in the Code on Wages, 2019, which replaced the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. Sections 3 and 4 prohibit discrimination on grounds of gender in wages for "the same work or work of a similar nature" — defined as work requiring the same skill, effort, experience, and responsibility under similar working conditions.
The factor language is deceptive: those factors operate only inside the similarity test, deciding whether two jobs are close enough to compare at all. India has no equal-value standard — no mechanism by which a female-dominated occupation can be compared with a different, male-dominated occupation of equivalent overall demands. That places India in the same-work-only tier, despite having ratified ILO Convention 100 back in 1958: the treaty's "work of equal value" principle remains broader than the domestic statute, a shortfall the ILO's supervisory machinery has periodically flagged.
The Code binds employers across the organized sector, enforced through inspectors-cum-facilitators and claims machinery, with the equal pay guarantee applying to recruitment and conditions of employment as well as wages. As elsewhere in this tier, however, the structural limit matters more than the enforcement detail: in a labor market with pronounced occupational segregation, a same-or-similar-work test simply never reaches most of the gender pay gap.
India illustrates how a gap can persist through a full legislative overhaul. The 2019 consolidation modernized definitions, replaced "same or similar work" disputes machinery, and made the guarantee gender-neutral in drafting — yet declined the opportunity to adopt equal value. For multinational employers, the practical consequence is familiar: an Indian pay structure can be locally compliant while failing the equal-value tests those same employers face in the EU, Canada, or under their own global pay equity commitments. Indian operations are increasingly assessed against group standards precisely because the local statute asks so little.
India wrote the right factors into its definition and stopped at the wrong comparison. Employers who carry the factors through to genuine value comparison close the gap their statute leaves open.
Government-published job evaluation tools, guides, and templates — each links directly to the official source.
No. The Code on Wages, 2019 prohibits gender discrimination in wages for the same work or work of a similar nature — a standard narrower than work of equal value. No Indian statute requires comparing the value of different jobs, so there is no job evaluation mandate.
Work for which the skill, effort, experience, and responsibility required are the same when performed under similar working conditions. The similarity test keeps comparisons close to like-for-like — it does not allow a female-dominated job to be compared with a different male-dominated job of equivalent overall value.
Yes. The Code on Wages, 2019 subsumed the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, carrying forward its equal pay guarantee in sections 3 and 4 — and retaining its same-or-similar-work scope rather than adopting the equal-value standard.
Yes, in 1958 — one of the earlier ratifications. The Convention's equal-value standard remains broader than India's domestic same-or-similar-work test, a gap the ILO's supervisory bodies have noted.
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Last reviewed: 2026-06-11