The struggle for equal pay in Norway is at a standstill

World Courant

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In Denmark, Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen’s promise of a NOK three billion pot for civil servants was an election winner. In Iceland, the Prime Minister wholeheartedly participates within the normal strike for equal pay. And in Norway?

Ragnhild lied Extra…

That is the place the struggle for equal pay involves a standstill.

After we have fun Equal Pay Day on November 16, it’s a image that from right now all girls can work without cost for the remainder of the 12 months. The general pay hole is 12.4 %. However for folks with greater schooling it’s even larger.

Researchers Liza Reisel and Sara Seehuus from the Division of Social Analysis put it merely and clearly as follows in Dagens Næringsliv on November 11:

‘Younger males with solely higher secondary schooling persistently earn greater than girls with a bachelor’s diploma. On this level, Norway differs from most different international locations in that it ranks backside internationally with regards to returns on schooling. This contains the compressed wage construction and the frontline mannequin that ensures that the trade uncovered to competitors would be the wage chief.”

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It’s an equality paradox that extra girls than males pursue greater schooling, however nonetheless don’t earn higher than males. Typically it’s simply the other.

The foremost public sector welfare professions with greater schooling necessities have the worst wages whenever you take a look at your working life as a complete. That is evident from a Statistics Norway report on lifetime earnings, which was revealed in August this 12 months.

And it is taking place in a state of affairs the place we’d like extra folks to enter these professions. Boys do not apply there, and there are already indicators that fewer ladies can deal with it.

The gendered working life has confirmed very troublesome to alter. As many as 71 % of these working within the public sector are girls. 9 in ten nurses are girls, 9 in ten kindergarten academics are girls and 7 in ten major college academics are girls.

The Danish Prime Minister is aware of that demand for public sector professionals is excessive and that wages are an essential software to recruit and retain them. The overwhelming majority of the teams that Mette Fredriksen desires to accommodate are dominated by girls. There’s due to this fact an equal pay dimension to this measure, harking back to the Equal Pay Fee’s (2008) proposal for an equal pay pool.

One of many slogans on the equal pay strike in Iceland just a few weeks in the past was that female-dominated professions needs to be paid the identical as male-dominated professions. All the ladies and lots of males stopped the strike on Saga Island – even the Prime Minister stopped working.

Why so quiet in Norway?

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As a result of the equal pay hole is just not altering, regardless of warnings from researchers, political commentators and unions. The frustration is just not least mirrored within the collective labor settlement. A union strike in 2021 and a trainer strike in 2022 haven’t lowered the equal pay hole. Quite the opposite. This 12 months the equal pay hole is a number of proportion factors bigger than final 12 months.

Unio’s struggle to extend wages for extremely educated folks within the public sector can be a struggle for equal pay. However when the framework seen on the entrance traces turns into a side and never a norm of public sector administration, wage gaps widen 12 months on 12 months.

Or as DN commentator Anita Hoemsnes requested rhetorically earlier than the wage agreements two years in the past: ‘Are girls within the public sector paying the value for the male-dominated trade to take care of its competitiveness vis-à-vis overseas?’ (August 28, 2020).

Now the celebration employees “Frontfagmodellutvalet” (Holden IV) is nicely on its manner Gaccountable for “the financial and labor-related challenges till 2050”. It stays to be seen whether or not this choice has taken these challenges to coronary heart. Issues will nonetheless be totally different, as Anita Hoemsnes concluded in DN on March 12:

“The consequence of the rising wage hole between the non-public and public sectors for extremely educated staff might be that public sector staff transfer to better-paid jobs within the non-public sector. It is a disgrace for them, however it may result in an excellent larger scarcity of arms within the public sector.”

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Present all positions

The answer requires motion from politicians and that requires one thing from us – the skilled events.

Main gamers can not merely say no, however acknowledge that it is a social drawback that we should remedy collectively.

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The struggle for equal pay in Norway is at a standstill

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