The Politics of Gender Pay Equity: Policy Mechanisms, Institutionalised Undervaluation and Non-Decision Making

Abstract

The gender pay gap is a persistent challenge across different national contexts. Within these contexts, however, the underlying mechanisms that have resulted in the gender pay gap can take different shape. In Finland, the gender pay gap has been resistant to policy measures implemented in order to reduce it. This thesis aims to shed light on some of the central features of Finnish society, its institutional context, central actors, and stakeholders, and how these are linked to the apparent failures of Finnish equal pay policy. This study offers a broad-ranging sociological understanding of Finnish society, its historical development, and the kind of citizenship it has offered to its female citizens. The thesis also discusses the role of central labour market organisations in institutionalising wage relativities between the different industries in the Finnish labour market and protecting their vested interests in policy-making. The empirical part of the thesis consists of three articles, each of which addresses an issue that is critical to Finnish and international equal pay policy: the role of collective agreements in institutionalising gendered valuations in wage setting in the Finnish local government sector, evaluation-based pay systems and the assumption that they inherently promote gender pay equity, and non-decision making in tripartite policy process and the way it affected the drafting of the new Finnish gender equality legislation. The first data set was gathered in a participatory action research project in which 18 Finnish organisations took part. The aim of the project was to promote equal pay through developing pay systems The second data set consists of the official minutes of the meetings of the tripartite working group that drafted the law about equal pay comparisons that are mandatory for organisations to conduct. The thesis mainly uses qualitative research methods, along with quantitative and documentary analysis. Based on the research findings, the following arguments are made. The Finnish welfare state has played an active role in creating a secondary labour market for Finnish women in the reproductive work of the public sector. The central labour market organisations have further strengthened the gendered division of labour and hierarchy between male-dominated and female-dominated sectors and industries by institutionalising the wage relativities between these industries in collective agreements. As central actors and powerful players in Finnish policy-making, the central labour market organisations protect their vested interests and resist changes to equal pay policy and legislation. Instead of directly addressing the most important structural and institutional features of the Finnish labour market, current Finnish equal pay policy focuses on less controversial issues, such as organisational practices. Failure to address the most relevant issues on gender pay equity results in modest advances in policy outcomes.