The joke in Thimphu, these days is that every family has at least one daughter in Australia, one son thinking about Australia, and one cousin already sending back photos of Melbourne flat whites. It’s funny until you look at the numbers: Bhutan, the land of Gross National Happiness, is watching a quiet exodus of young women who have decided that happiness flows more reliably from a fair paycheck abroad than from polite promises at home.
A new World Bank report—widely cited in regional media—lays out the uncomfortable truth with statistical precision. Bhutan’s gender pay gap stands among the highest in South Asia, with women earning significantly less than men for comparable work. At the same time, female unemployment remains stubbornly high. In a country where zhung driglam (government protocol) and deeply ingrained social norms still shape expectations, women are often pushed into lower-paying sectors such as hospitality, retail, and care work. Meanwhile, men continue to dominate higher-paid government and private-sector jobs. The result: a generation of educated Bhutanese women deciding that the only way to achieve true economic empowerment is to step onto a plane.
Australia has emerged as the destination of choice. The combination of student visas, high minimum wages, and an active Bhutanese diaspora makes cities like Perth, Melbourne, and Brisbane feel almost like extensions of Thimphu. Social media adds its own fuel—every time someone uploads a picture of their first Aussie paycheque, it becomes an instant advertisement for migration. When young Bhutanese women compare those wages to what they might earn at home—often barely enough to cover rent in Thimphu’s increasingly expensive housing market—the decision becomes clear.
Bhutan’s government is not blind to these trends. Officials note that job creation has been slow and that the private sector, still small and heavily dependent on state direction, has not expanded quickly enough to absorb the growing number of graduates. Programs aimed at reskilling and entrepreneurship have helped some, but many young women still feel blocked by limited opportunities, traditional gender expectations, and a lingering preference for men in leadership roles. In practice, the promise of thuenlam (mutual respect and cooperation), a core national value, often seems to stop at the office door.
Cultural expectations also play a quiet but powerful role. Bhutan is often described as a society with relatively equitable inheritance patterns, where daughters can inherit family land and enjoy social status equal to sons. Yet modern workplaces tell a different story. Women report being passed over for promotions, earning far less than male colleagues, and struggling to balance household responsibilities with long working hours. As one Thimphu teacher told local media, “We say we are equal, but equal doesn’t pay the rent.”
The gender wage gap amplifies another problem: the prestige economy. Government jobs are still viewed as the most secure and desirable, but competition is intense and hiring processes slow. Private companies offer fewer benefits, often lower wages, and limited long-term security. Women, disproportionately placed in these roles, see their financial independence erode. For many, leaving becomes an act of self-preservation rather than ambition.
Migration also reshapes families. Some husbands stay behind, becoming what local commentators jokingly call “Australia widowers”—men temporarily living alone as their wives study or work abroad. Others follow, turning what began as individual migration into a family relocation. Remittances now play a meaningful role in many households, blurring the line between personal choice and national economic strategy.
But the social costs are real. Communities worry about the hollowing out of their youth population, and policymakers express concern that Bhutan is losing some of its brightest women to foreign labor markets. While the government has acknowledged the need for reforms—better childcare, stronger labor protections, wage transparency, and targeted efforts to raise women’s participation in high-skill sectors—progress remains slow.
And so the departures continue. At Paro Airport, the line for flights to Bangkok and onward to Australia grows longer. Many women leave with mixed feelings—love for their yul (homeland), frustration at their prospects, hope for better pay and fair treatment elsewhere. They carry the quiet wish that one day they might return to a Bhutan where “happiness” includes economic equality, meaningful work, and a paycheck that reflects their skills.
Until then, the Australian cafés will keep hiring, the Bhutanese diaspora will keep growing, and the irony will remain: the country that taught the world to measure wellbeing beyond GDP is now losing women who simply want a fair shot at earning it.
Let me tell you something that every feminist traveler in Asia learns sooner or later: the gender pay gap may change its accent from Thimphu to Tokyo, but the tune is always the same. Whether you call it gapmo, danzi, jurang, kamin, or just plain old “men get more,” the melody plays across the whole region. Women get the smiles, men get the salaries. Women do the care work, men do the “important” work. And when women finally ask for equal pay and access to decent jobs, they’re told to be patient, be grateful, be quiet. Ah, patriarchy—the one thing truly borderless in Asia.
Bhutan is particularly heartbreaking for me. I’ve been there many times, wrapped in the crisp mountain air, drinking butter tea with grandmothers who laugh with their whole bodies, and chatting with young women whose eyes sparkle when they speak of their future. I’ve sat on wooden floors while girls passed me homemade momos, whispering their dreams of independence, education, and a life where they wouldn’t have to rely on a man’s paycheck to survive. They spoke of wanting fair wages, real promotions, and jobs that matched their abilities—not just what some office uncle thought “suitable for women.”
And then came the silence. The kind of silence that fills a room when hope meets reality. They told me about salaries that barely cover rent in Thimphu, opportunities handed to less-qualified men, and workplaces where equality is something you hear in government speeches, not in your monthly payslip. One young woman said to me, very softly, “Auntie, I love my country. But my country doesn’t yet love my ambition.” That one stayed with me.
So they leave. They pack their kira, their certificates, their courage, and their quiet grief. They leave behind husbands who promise they’ll manage, children who don’t understand why mummy is going so far away, and parents who feel pride and worry in the same breath. The world sees statistics; I see the unspeakable sadness in the eyes of women boarding planes in Paro and Phnom Penh, in Dhaka and Manila. Migration isn’t glamorous. It’s survival.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a Bhutanese crisis. This is Asia-wide. From Nepal to Japan, from Indonesia to Korea, the wage gap and unequal access to good jobs push women to seek justice abroad. The tragedy isn’t that they leave—it’s that their homelands still give them too few reasons to stay.
One day, I hope the dream they shared with me—of dignity, fairness, and equal pay—will be possible without a boarding pass.