Dataset · ILO

Low Pay Rate

18 years, 2006–2024 · 71 countries

This is the share of employees whose hourly pay is below two-thirds of the typical — median — hourly pay in their own country. It is a standard international measure of low pay, and shows how many workers sit far below the middle of the wage scale.

This site holds every year from 2006 to 2024, read from ILO’s own data and stored exactly as published.

Open Low Pay Rate, 2024 Download all 18 · CSV See it charted by country →

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Low Pay Rate · the file

Newest: Low Pay Rate, 2024
Held: 18 years · 1,129 rows
Licence: CC BY 4.0

18years held
2006–2024years
1,129rows across every year
71countries in the newest134 across every year
1measure
CC BY 4.0licence

0118 years

Every year

Every year comes from ILO’s 2026 release, recalculated on one method. Each opens the full table for that year; each downloads as a CSV.

2006bar height: countries covered, up to 772024

Every year of Low Pay Rate held on this site, newest first, with its download files.
Year	Countries	Change	Read	Download
Low Pay Rate, 2024Newest	71	+7 −13	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2023	77	+9 −7	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2022	75	+21 −9	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2021	63	+17 −9	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2020	55	+8 −21	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2019	68	+17 −18	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2018	69	+20 −13	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2017	62	+13 −11	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2016	60	+10 −8	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2015	58	+7 −23	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2014	74	+22 −8	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2013	60	+10 −9	October 3, 2026	CSV

Show all 18 years

Year	Countries	Change	Read	Download
Low Pay Rate, 2012	59	+11 −8	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2011	56	+5 −16	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2010	67	+21 −5	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2009	51	+4 −3	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2008	50	+9 −13	October 3, 2026	CSV
Low Pay Rate, 2006	54	—	October 3, 2026	CSV

Every year in one file, one row per country per year: low-pay-rate-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv

026 columns

What’s in the file

Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.

Every column in the newest file of Low Pay Rate: what it holds, how it is stored, and its range.
Column	What it holds	Stored as	Range, 2024	Distinct	Empty
ISO Code`country_code`Identifier	The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it.	Text · 3 letters	—	71	0
Country`country`Name	The country’s name, as this file spells it.	Text	—	71	0
Employees paid less than two-thirds of the median hourly earnings (%)`low_pay_rate`Headline	The headline figure: Employees paid less than two-thirds of the median hourly earnings (%).	Number · up to 3 decimals	3.40New Zealand41.69Tanzaniamiddle 17.89	70	0
Source (ILO)`data_source`Label	The survey or register the ILO took this row from — a labour force survey, a household income survey, an employer survey or tax records — in the ILO’s own words.	Text	—	43	0
What the source covers (ILO notes)`coverage_notes`Label	What that source leaves out, where the ILO records it — for example urban areas only, or establishments below a certain size.	Text	—	2	69
ILO observation status`observation_status`Flag	ILO’s flag on the reading, such as an estimate or a provisional figure.	Text	—	1	67

Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. A higher value is the worse result.

03134 countries across every year

Who is covered

How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.

All regions

Countries in each year of Low Pay Rate, by continent.
	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Africa	10	12	6	8	9	7	13	6	11	13	12	13
Americas	16	16	16	16	16	18	17	14	17	17	20	19
Asia	15	17	16	15	17	15	19	17	17	16	14	12
Europe	17	27	18	18	16	26	15	16	15	26	26	24
Oceania	2	2	2	3	4	3	4	2	3	3	5	3
All	60	74	58	60	62	69	68	55	63	75	77	71

The newest 12 of 18 years.

Who joined and who left

2024
+ Burkina Faso+ Fiji+ Guyana+ Lesotho+ Nigeria+ Palestine+ Tanzania− Antigua and Barbuda− Bahamas− Cook Islands− Finland− Equatorial Guinea− Indonesia− Israel− Cambodia− Kiribati− Poland− Eswatini− Tonga− Zimbabwe
2023
+ Antigua and Barbuda+ Bahamas+ Cook Islands+ Equatorial Guinea+ Guatemala+ Cambodia+ Kiribati+ Eswatini+ Tonga− Bhutan− Laos− Mozambique− Palestine− Sudan− Somalia− Samoa
2022
+ Bangladesh+ Spain+ Estonia+ Ghana+ Greece+ Ireland+ Italy+ Laos+ Lithuania+ Luxembourg+ Latvia+ Mali+ Mozambique+ Netherlands+ Poland+ Sudan+ Senegal+ Somalia+ Slovenia+ Uruguay+ Samoa− Comoros− Ethiopia− Guyana− Cambodia− Pakistan− Eswatini− Timor-Leste− Tonga− Uganda
2021
+ Bolivia+ Colombia+ Comoros+ Denmark+ Ecuador+ Ethiopia+ Finland+ Mauritius+ Pakistan+ Paraguay+ Rwanda+ El Salvador+ Eswatini+ Timor-Leste+ Tonga+ Uganda+ Zimbabwe− Afghanistan− Greece− Italy− Mali− Myanmar− Poland− Puerto Rico− Tanzania− Uruguay
2020
+ Afghanistan+ Bosnia and Herzegovina+ Chile+ Mali+ Poland+ Puerto Rico+ Tanzania+ Uruguay− Bahamas− Belize− Côte d’Ivoire− Cook Islands− Colombia− Ecuador− Finland− Kenya− Lebanon− Lesotho− Maldives− Marshall Islands− Mauritania− Mauritius− Nigeria− Pakistan− Paraguay− Senegal− El Salvador− Tunisia− Uganda
2019
+ Angola+ Bahamas+ Botswana+ Côte d’Ivoire+ Cook Islands+ Kenya+ Cambodia+ Lebanon+ Lesotho+ Maldives+ Marshall Islands+ Mongolia+ Mauritania+ Nigeria+ Senegal+ Tunisia+ Uganda− Antigua and Barbuda− Chile− Denmark− Spain− Estonia− Gambia− Ireland− Iceland− Lithuania− Luxembourg− Latvia− Mali− Namibia− Netherlands− Poland− Sierra Leone− Slovenia− Tonga
2018
+ Antigua and Barbuda+ Belize+ Bhutan+ Spain+ Estonia+ Gambia+ Guyana+ India+ Ireland+ Iceland+ Lithuania+ Luxembourg+ Latvia+ Namibia+ Netherlands+ Pakistan+ Poland+ Sierra Leone+ Slovenia+ Tonga− Armenia− Bangladesh− Côte d’Ivoire− Ghana− Laos− Liberia− Mongolia− New Caledonia− Nepal− Rwanda− Uganda− Venezuela− Samoa
2017
+ Argentina+ Bangladesh+ Côte d’Ivoire+ Ghana+ Jordan+ Laos+ Myanmar+ New Caledonia+ Nepal+ Rwanda+ Uganda+ Samoa+ Zambia− Bosnia and Herzegovina− DR Congo− Fiji− Kenya− Cambodia− Maldives− Namibia− Poland− Eswatini− Timor-Leste− Trinidad and Tobago

Not in this dataset · 91 places this site covers

ILO gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.

British Virgin Islands

Cabo Verde

Cayman Islands

Central African Republic

North Macedonia Northern Cyprus

Northern Mariana Islands

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

Saint Martin

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

San Marino

São Tomé and Príncipe

Solomon Islands Somaliland

Turks and Caicos Islands

Tuvalu

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

United States Virgin Islands

Uzbekistan

Vatican City

04Provenance

Where it comes from

The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.

The site’s method

1 · Publisher
International Labour Organization (ILO)
ilostat.ilo.org
2 · Their file
Low Pay Rate 2024
Read from the publisher’s own service.
3 · Read by this site
October 3, 2026
Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.
4 · Stored as
18 files, one per year
Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as low-pay-rate-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
/statistics/low-pay-rate

Precision

The headline is stored to 3 decimals, as published.

Rounded by this site

Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.

Changed by this site

Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.

Read from ILOSTAT directly; close to three rows in ten are figures the ILO takes from the OECD. Country-years the ILO serves as exactly 0, where no figure exists, are left out.

05Reuse

Licence and credit

What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.

Every publisher’s terms

Licence · checked October 3, 2026

CC BY 4.0

Share and redistribute it
Adapt it and build on it
Use it commercially
Credit the publisher
Say what you changed

Share, adapt and use commercially. Credit the publisher and say if you changed anything.

A credit line

Source: International Labour Organization (ILO), Low Pay Rate, via Nations Inquiry.

Cite this dataset

International Labour Organization (ILO). Low Pay Rate, 2006–2024 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/low-pay-rate

The publisher’s own citation: International Labour Organization. ILOSTAT. Geneva: ILO.

Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.

06Where it is used

Around the site

Where these numbers appear on this site, and the datasets nearest to it.

Charted
Low Pay Rate by country
Who is highest, the map, the spread, who rose and fell, and the records.
Subjects
- Work & Labour
- Poverty & Inequality
Near neighbours
- Employment-to-Population RatioILO · 35 held · 1991–2025
- Unemployment RateILO · 35 held · 1991–2025
- Vulnerable EmploymentILO · 35 held · 1991–2025

07Questions

Low Pay Rate: questions and answers

What is the Low Pay Rate?

Which years of the Low Pay Rate can I download?

All 18, from 2006 to 2024, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.

Does ILO rank countries on it?

No. ILO publishes values only. The positions shown on this site are derived by ordering the published values, and are labelled as ours.

Can I use it commercially?

Yes, under CC BY 4.0, with credit to ILO. The licence text is linked on this page.

This edition

The same ranking, cut differently

Behind the number

Browse

By continent

Much-read profiles

Every subject

The numbers

Reading the data