New report examines gender pay gaps for work of equal value
A new report explores how public statistics can be used to analyse gender pay gaps for work of equal value in the Nordic countries.
Despite longstanding legislation mandating equal pay for work of equal value, significant wage gaps between women and men persist across the Nordic region. A new project, initiated by the Nordic Council of Ministers and carried out by NIKK, has investigated how public statistics can be used to highlight gender-based pay differences for work of equal value in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The study shows that the gender pay gap remains despite equal pay laws, partly due to a gender-segregated labour market and differences in how wages and occupations are statistically defined across countries. Female-dominated occupations are often undervalued in terms of pay, despite having comparable requirements to male-dominated professions.
The report provides several recommendations for how statistics should be improved to enable more accurate analyses of gender and pay, including more detailed occupational classifications, sector-specific wage statistics, and data on part-time work, age, and education linked to gender.
The study is a first step toward increased pay transparency in line with the EU Pay Transparency Directive and the UN’s 2030 Agenda, which includes the goal of eliminating gender pay gaps for work of equal value.
The report is authored by Minna Salminen-Karlsson, Docent in Sociology and affiliated researcher at the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, and Anna Fogelberg Eriksson, Senior Associate Professor of Education at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning at Linköping University.
