Operationalising Living Wages at the ILO in Geneva 28-29 April 2025

Professor Martin Kahanec, Scientific Director at CELSI and key scientist in WageIndicator's Living Wage methodology and WageIndicator's Director Data Daniela Ceccon attended the ILO meeting on Living Wages. An interview about the importance of the meeting and next steps

Hi Martin! You and Daniela were at a ILO meeting on Operationalizing Living Wages last week.

Could you share with us what this was about and why WageIndicator joined?

Yes, I participated in the International Labour Organization’s global conference Operationalizing Living Wages in Geneva on 28-29 April 2025. Under the ILO’s leadership, the meeting brought together leading international experts, trade unions, employer representatives, brands, and researchers to discuss how to conceptualize, calculate, and implement Living Wages globally in a harmonized and practical manner. It was a pivotal moment to assess the state of the art, build on existing achievements to facilitate future progress, and foster synergies and cross-fertilization of ideas among key stakeholders. Especially after the ILO's Governing Body landmark decision on conceptualisation of Living Wages in 2024. As part of the WageIndicator Foundation team, we - I was there with Daniela Ceccon, WageIndicator's Data Director - contributed by enhancing the visibility and credibility of WageIndicator’s Living Wage methodology and advocating for scalable, localized, and implementation-ready solutions.

What is the outcome of the meeting?

The meeting confirmed strong momentum behind the global Living Wage agenda. There was broad recognition that practical implementation, scalability, localization, and the timeliness of Living Wage calculations are just as important as methodological rigor. This aligns fully with the WageIndicator approach, which is based on field data collection with over 400 data collectors, stakeholder engagement, and actual labor market conditions - while offering harmonized estimates for 175 countries and more than 3,000 regions worldwide. A key outcome was the ILO’s progression towards embracing methodological diversity within the 'wage hub' initiative, rather than pursuing a single “perfect” benchmark—which would risk stalling progress. Instead, the commitment now lies in building Living Wage systems that are actionable, transparent, and regularly updated.

That seems like a good outcome to build on. Can you share why this could be important for workers, employers, trade unions and global brands?

Living Wage estimates provide a clear definition of what it means to earn enough for a decent life. With credible, field-based data, workers and their representatives can more effectively advocate for improved pay and conditions.

Brands and employers benefit from robust, harmonized, and scalable estimates to guide their internal wage strategies and supply chain practices. Our data helps them align their operations with sustainability and fairness goals while staying practical and accountable.

Trade unions gain a powerful advocacy tool. Because WageIndicator's Living Wage estimates are grounded in local realities and validated through stakeholder input, they support both collective bargaining and broader wage policy advocacy. Importantly, both unions and employers are core partners in our implementation methodology.

We also worked with key stakeholders such as Unilever and IDH to ensure that brand-led initiatives are integrated within the broader Living Wage ecosystem. These efforts help promote transparency, fairness, talent retention, and long-term sustainability and productivity of business.

And what will be the effect for better wages in the future?

By moving beyond overly complex estimation debates and adopting scalable, transparent, and field-validated methodologies, we can accelerate the incremental increase from Minimum to Living Wages in practice. Our data and research demonstrates that aligning wages with our Living Wage estimates significantly reduces material deprivation. We validate our Living Wage estimates by showing that they more accurately reflect income adequacy than current standards such as Minimum or “Adequate” wages. Living Wages, as calculated by WageIndicator, better capture the threshold for a dignified standard of living, offering a reliable, actionable basis for policymakers, researchers, employers, and global institutions to reform and improve wage systems.

Now that the ILO has taken these first steps in laying the groundwork for the ecosystem, what would be your ideal outcome?

The ideal outcome would be a global Living Wage ecosystem that is inclusive, pluralistic, and geared toward practical, timely implementation. It should encourage mutual learning, policy innovation, and stakeholder engagement. I would like to see the ILO, social partners, employers and other stakeholders fully benefit from methodologies like WageIndicator’s - valuing their strengths in scalability, regular updating, transparency, and stakeholder validation, while focusing efforts on complementarity and implementation. The goal should be to build a robust global infrastructure for Living Wages that is adaptable, actionable, timely, scalable globally and rooted in local realities.

May 7, 2025