Today, women in the Nordics are among the most active labour market participants in the world, but the goal of equal conditions in the labour market is far from being achieved. With this in mind, the Nordic Council of Ministers initiated the project ‘Pay equity in the Nordic region’ in 2022. A crucial issue for the project was to broaden the focus from equal pay for equal work, to equal pay for work of equal value. The overall aim of the project was to promote dialogue and the exchange of experiences and knowledge on how to address pay gaps between the Nordic countries and the social partners. 

The latest report released under the project is Towards pay equity: Explaining the undervaluation of women’s work in the Nordic countries.  

The publication discusses various explanations for the undervaluation of women’s work in a gender-segregated labour market, based on a survey of social partners and other key actors in the Nordic countries. By combining different statistics on gender pay gaps with theoretical approaches and survey responses from key stakeholders, the report provides a deeper understanding of the complex mechanisms underlying the gender pay gap. 

Jimmys Sand is an analyst at the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research and author of the report: 

Unequal pay is based on a combination of structural factors, in particular the high degree of gender segregation, and social norms on, mainly, skills and caring responsibilities. Tackling this requires a combination of policy reforms as well as measures under the control of the social partners. These include efforts to promote gender equality in unpaid care work, as well as paid work in the labour market. 

It is hoped that the three publications, together with the Nordic network that has been formed, can promote further work to reduce pay gaps and the gender-segregated labour market in the Nordic region.  

Jimmy Sand sees an important role for the social partners in particular: 

“In the Nordic countries, there is a strong norm that employers and trade unions are responsible for wage formation without political interference. They therefore have a great responsibility not only to stand up for gender equality as a principle, but also to take action through co-operation to bring about real change.