The Equality and Human Rights Commission will write to the BBC over claims of unlawful pay discrimination made by former China editor Carrie Gracie.
The watchdog said it will request all relevant information from the corporation and then decide whether further action is required, following the row over Ms Gracie's claims.
The journalist said she learned last year that of the four international editors in the past four years at the corporation, two men had earned more than their female counterparts.
In the pay disclosure last year, North America editor Jon Sopel was listed as having a salary of between £200,000 and £249,999, while Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen earned between £150,000 and £199,999.
Europe editor Katya Adler did not make the list.
Ms Gracie said on Monday morning that she earned £135,000 as China editor, and was offered an increase of £45,000 when she complained about the discrepancy.
The long-time journalist said accepting the wage boost would have meant colluding in "unlawful pay discrimination".
"Women have a legal right to equal pay with men for equal work", said a spokesman for the EHRC in a statement.
"All employers have a duty to do more to end discrimination and ensure they fully comply with equality law."
Ms Gracie said she was willing to take a salary cut if the BBC chose to restructure pay scales to ensure fairness.
"For me the money is not the issue. The issue is the equality," Ms Gracie told Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman on Monday evening.
The senior BBC journalist said her bosses have not contacted her since the story of the reasons for her resignation broke on Sunday.
She said: "No one has picked up the phone, no. Actually to be fair, one boss overnight just wanted to check I was okay for the Today Programme."
Ms Gracie, who has been with the BBC for 30 years and has led its China coverage since 2004, described the pay offer as a "divide-and-rule, botched solution".
Explaining her decision to resign, she said: "I could not do it, nor could I stay silent and watch the BBC perpetuate a failing pay structure by discriminating against women."
A BBC spokesman said: "Fairness in pay is vital. A significant number of organisations have now published their gender pay figures showing that we are performing considerably better than many and are well below the national average."
He highlighted the broadcaster's independent judge-led pay audit for "rank-and-file" staff which showed "no systemic discrimination against women" and said a separate report for on-air staff would be published "in the not too distant future".
Up to 200 women at various levels of the organisation have made complaints about pay, according to BBC Women, a group of more than 150 broadcasters and producers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel