Open AccessDecoupling gender equality from gender pay audits in Swedish municipalities
Author(s) -
Minna SalminenKarlsson,
Anna Eriksson
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
economic and industrial democracy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1461-7099
pISSN - 0143-831X
DOI - 10.1177/0143831x211020804
Subject(s) - audit , salary , bureaucracy , accounting , business , gender equality , gender pay gap , decoupling (probability) , demographic economics , labour economics , economics , political science , wage , sociology , engineering , gender studies , control engineering , politics , law , market economy
This article investigates processes of gender pay audits in five municipalities in Sweden in order to understand the reasons why gender pay audits in general do not level out men’s and women’s salaries in the way they are intended to. The results show how gender pay audits became a bureaucratic process to fulfil a legal requirement, and how they were decoupled from core organizational practices and salary policies. This decoupling was furthered by the realization that the result of gender pay audits would imply a need for large structural changes in pay policies, for which there were no financial means. Consequently, decoupling was found to be a major reason why gender pay audits are ineffective in coming to terms with gender pay gaps.