
Despite having had laws mandating equal pay between the sexes for decades, Icelandâs stubborn gap still hasnât completely closed. Hence a possible new approach currently being entertained: receipts.
The New York Times reports on the countryâs attempts to close the stubborn 14 to 20 percent gap between men and womenâs pay. âFor decades, weâve said weâre going to fix this,â said activist Frida Ros Valdimarsdottir. âBut women are still getting lower pay, and thatâs insane.â And so the governmentâwhich wants to wrap this shit up in the next five yearsâhas decided to introduce legislation that would require companies to provide proof that everything is even-steven.
It would work like so:
The new rules would require the biggest companies and government agencies to undergo audits, starting in 2018, and to obtain a certification of compliance with equal pay rules. Businesses with over 25 employees must comply by 2022.
Employers must assess every job, from cleaner to senior executive, to identify and fix wage gaps of more than 5 percent.
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âHistory has shown that if you want progress, you need to enforce it,â explained social affairs and equality minister Thorsteinn Viglundsson. Truer words, Thorsteinn!
The measures havenât passed yet, and they face a familiar refrain of complaints about the cost of compliance for small businesses. But a pilot program testing out the auditing process has already inspired interesting conversations where itâs been tried:
Equally disturbing to Ms. Kristjansdottir was that women negotiated lower salaries than men. Generally, men are four times as likely to ask for a raise, and when women ask, they seek 30 percent less on average.
âYouâd be sitting there doing the interview, and theyâd ask for less,â Ms. Kristjansdottir said. âThe audit showed this was a flaw in our recruitment, that we were allowing this to happen and didnât quite realize it.â
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Imagine a company considering whether it might be incumbent upon them to make sure women got paid the same amount as men rather than just walking away with the conclusion that women were bad negotiators.