Working Group Memorandums of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2005:7. Working group proposal for a programme to promote equal pay for women and men.

The working group was assigned to prepare an equal pay programme that would promote equal pay for women and men and encompass the entire labour market field. In accordance with the assignment, the working group has prepared a proposal for a programme to be implemented in a tripartite cooperation between the government and the social partners.

A starting point for the working group was the general tendency towards bridging the gap between women’s and men’s pay as well as the implementation of the equal pay principle in accordance with the Act on Equality between Women and Men. With the measures of the equal pay programme, the partners aim at jointly promoting the attainment of these goals. Measures are proposed for horizontal and vertical segregation, women’s career development, temporary employment, gender equality plans, reconciliation of family and work, pay systems, pay and employment contract policies in general, development of statistics and cooperation in statistics as well as social responsibility of enterprises and communities. The goal is that in these targeted areas, the equal pay programme facilitates continuity and long-term activities, which can be further developed according to results and objectives.

A more general objective for the programme is to diminish the gap between women’s and men’s pay, computed on the basis of regular monthly working hours, from the present approx. 20 percent by at least 5 percentage units by 2015.

The working group proposes that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health appoints a tripartite group to monitor the implementation of the equal pay programme.

Key words : Government Programmes, women’s position, pay differentials, pay systems, pay, equal pay, segregation, gender differences, discrimination, gender equality, equality plans, work assessment