by Paula Määttä

XIV. Concluding remarks

As of December 1995, the Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 has been ratified by 123 countries. Of the 12 countries considered in this report, all have ratified it except the United States. During the past two decades women's participation in the labour force has increased, but at the same time their position has not improved in the labour market. In developing countries women's work is more invisible than in the developed countries, because a larger number of women work in the informal sector, which is not protected by legislation. Despite ratifications and national equality and equal pay legislation, there still remains a gender-based wage gap -- as shown in the table referred to as appendix 1.

In most of these countries, there is legislation which provides for equal pay for work of equal value. Some countries, such as India and Ghana, however, have limited the extent of work comparisons to work that is the same rather than using the more broad concept of work of equal value. Another type of shortcoming is that the equal pay legislation in some countries does not cover all occupations or areas of employment, but leave some of them outside the provisions. For example, legislation in Ghana and India exclude homeworkers and self-employed workers, who are usually female workers in farming, households and unorganized sectors. Some legislation, as in Ontario, Canada, excludes small private sector employers from its ambit.

Another type of limitation arises from narrow definitions of the relevant workplace or employer for the purpose of work comparisons. Thus, the relevant workplace may be same workplace, or it may be the same establishment with different organizations in different districts, or it may be, as in Ontario, a corporate entity within a specific geographical region. Because of this definition of "establishment" in Ontario, an employer who has an office in city A and another in city B has two different establishments, which means that job comparison between men and women in between the two establishments cannot be made. Another type of limitation arises where there is a disjunction between definition and practice. Thus, in Finland's legislation, the term "employer" has been interpreted broadly, but in practice the work comparison is made between female and male employees employed in the same workplace. This is also the case in many other countries. Because of this limitation, wages in different organisations of the same establishment can be different. This is one reason for wage inequality between men and women workers performing work of equal value.

Moreover, some remuneration systems are based on criteria that in practice discriminate against women. For example, in many countries seniority plays an important role in wage-fixing. However, women tend to be far more subject to career interruptions than men. Another example of discriminatory practice involves retirement age. The collective agreements of some countries have fixed women's retirement age lower than of men, which disadvantages women in relation to men since end-of-service benefits are calculated on the basis of the length of service. The allocation of certain fringe benefits may also differ between men and women employees. For example, in Ghana some collective agreements define "family" as "an employee, his wife and children under 18 years". This provision would have the effect of denying to a female employee and her family benefits, such as in the case of a transfer, that would be available to a male employee and his family.

One characteristic shortcoming of legislation is that it does not oblige employers to implement pay equity until female employee has actually raised a complaint. Some countries have adopted a proactive approach which means that an employer is required to implement pay equity whether or not there has been a complaint. This is a case, for example in France, Australia and New Zealand, where employers are required to prepare programmes or plans for promoting equality between the sexes. Usually this applies to public sector and private sector employers, but in certain cases smaller employers are exempted.

Many trade unions have introduced measures to reduce wage discrimination. For example, in France all collective agreements signed in 1992 include provisions on occupational equality in general. Of the 18 new or updated agreements, 13 contained clauses on equal remuneration. In Canada and in Finland the trade union movement has used joint job evaluation programmes with employers. However, despite the existence of specialised status of women or equal employment opportunity posts in many trade unions, women are under-represented in the trade union organisations, particularly the executive bodies, of the 12 countries studied in this report. For example, in Germany and the United States, trade unions have organised campaigns for women to increase their participation. Organising women in developing countries in particular has faced many obstacles. One such obstacle is that many women need family or male approval of any activity they undertake outside their normal household duties. This leaves them little time for such activities as union participation.

Overall, many measures need to be introduced for promoting and achieving the principle of equal pay. There needs to be greater provision to make equal pay claims easier; to clarify legal principles, particularly on equal pay; to provide guidance on criteria to be taken into account to ensure equal pay for work of equal value; to extend the scope of comparison between jobs in different organisations and industries; to improve the collection and dissemination of pay data; to promote awareness of equality concepts; to stimulate equity action programmes; and to change attitudes towards female-dominated jobs and towards women's skills by not undervaluing women's attributes.