Equality and Equality between Women and Men Act (Iceland)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The law on equality and equal rights for women and men , Icelandic Lög um jafna stöðu og jafnan rétt kvenna og karla , aims to create and maintain equal opportunities for women and men in Iceland . The first version is from 2008. In a 2016/2017 amendment, measures and sanctions were added to ensure more fair wages between women and men.

Goals and structure

The law passed in 2008 pursues the overarching goal of creating and maintaining equal opportunities for women and men. Article 1 gives a number of guidelines to make this intention more concrete. These include, for example, the compatibility of family and work for both genders, changing traditional gender roles and negative stereotypes for men and women, and working against gender-centered violence and harassment. In order to achieve the objectives, the law provides for the establishment of specialized authorities and bodies. Articles 5 to 7, for example, regulate the tasks and competencies of a complaints office for violations ( Gender Equality Complaints Committee ).

The law includes objectives (section 1), institutions for implementation (section 2), rights and obligations (section 3), bans on gender discrimination (section 4) and sanctions (section 5).

Change 2016/2017: Establishing wage equity

motivation

Since 2009 Iceland has topped the Global Gender Gap Index compiled annually by the World Economic Forum for 144 countries , which aims to reflect the current level of participation of women in business and society. But there was still a gender-specific adjusted gender pay gap at the expense of women, which could not be explained by differences in working hours or position. In May 2015, the results of a study by the Icelandic statistical office, which had been carried out on behalf of the Icelandic government, were published: In 2013, after considering all structural explanatory factors, an unexplained difference between men and women of 5.7 percent was found, which the study found attributed to discrimination against women. Since the law on equality and equal rights for women and men came into force, this gender-specific pay gap has only decreased by 2.1 percentage points. The Icelandic legislature acted: The law included provisions aimed at establishing pay equity between women and men and ensuring equality between the sexes .

implementation

The Viðreisn party propagated the change in the law as one of their main topics in the election campaign for the parliamentary elections in Iceland in 2016, and after it entered parliament for the first time, it also included it in the coalition agreement. Some members of the Independence Party, Iceland's largest party, had reservations about the change, but abstained from voting. The law change was passed in the Althing , the Icelandic parliament , on June 1, 2017 and came into force on January 1, 2018. In 2012 Iceland had already developed the standard ÍST 85: 2012 for equal pay management based on the model of ISO standards 9001 for quality management and 14001 for environmental management, which is used here. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir , who took office after the 2017 general election in Iceland , as a declared feminist , is expected to continue to support the implementation of the law.

Regulations

Companies with more than 25 full-time employees must now be able to show an equal pay certificate (Icelandic Jafnlaunavottun ), which must be renewed every three years. For employers with more than 250 employees, the deadline ends on December 31, 2018; smaller companies have a little more time; Finally, companies with 25 to 89 employees must be able to present the certificate by December 31, 2021. Private consulting firms visit the companies and submit their verdict to the state center for gender equality (Icelandic: Jafnréttisstofa), including those who have failed the exam. The Center for Gender Equality then passes this information on to the social partners . Certified companies are allowed to use the equal pay symbol. If the certificate is not presented on time or is refused by the consulting company, there is a risk of fines of up to 50,000 Icelandic kroner (May 2018: around 400 euros) per day.

Reception of the change

  • At home

Business associations criticized the change as too bureaucratic and expensive to implement and argued that it interfered too much in the labor market. The concession to exempt companies with fewer than 25 employees from the obligation goes back to this. Economists criticized that there was no systematic gender-based discrimination in the labor market; With more precise measuring instruments one would find that the explanation for the unequal wages lies in different workloads and other factors.

  • Abroad

The new regulation from 2017 received a lot of media attention internationally. Iceland was the first country in the world to introduce a law that basically guarantees equal wages for equal work. Stefán Ólaffson of the European Social Policy Network (ESPN) noted that the law only focuses on the Adjusted Gender Pay Gap . However, it does not change the much larger explainable gap that can be traced back to different working hours and the fact that women do most of the unpaid care work and housework, while men spend more time on paid jobs. It is assumed, however, that the law will promote the ethos of gender and other equality issues in Iceland.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women and Men No. 10/2008, as amended by Act No. 162/2010, No. 126/2011, No. 62/2014, No. 79/2015, No. 117/2016 and No. 56/2017 In English.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Scientific Services of the German Bundestag: Law on Equal Pay between Women and Men. State of affairs. WD 6 -3000 -005/18 www. bundestag.de, February 5, 2018, accessed on May 24, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Stefán Ólaffson on behalf of the European Social Policy Network (ESPN): Iceland: Equal pay certification legalized. In: ESPN Flash Report 2017/55, July 2017, accessed May 26, 2018.
  4. ↑ Equal Pay Management System ÍST 85: 2012
  5. ↑ https://vmm-muenster.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/isp03-Anlage-ISN-1_2018.pdf Employers' Association Gesamtmetall: ISN Internationale Sozialpolitische Nachrichten. , Edition 1/2018.
  6. ↑ a b https://www.government.is/topics/human-rights-and-equality/equal-pay-certification/ Ministry of Welfare: Questions and Answers on equal pay certification. , January 30, 2018, accessed May 26, 2018.
  7. ^ Agence France-Presse: Iceland to enshrine equal pay for women and men in law. In: theguardian.com. November 28, 2017, accessed May 26, 2018 .
  8. ↑ L'Islande, championne de l'égalité hommes-femmes. In: lemonde.fr. January 5, 2018, accessed May 26, 2018 (French).
  9. ↑ Silke Bigalke: "The right time for radical things". In: sueddeutsche.de . January 4, 2018, accessed May 26, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Iceland closes the gender pay gap and pays women and men equally. In: Spiegel Online . January 4, 2018, accessed May 31, 2018 .