October 24, 2022
Steinunn Rögnvaldsdóttir, Finnborg Salome Steinþórsdóttir, Auður Inga Rúnarsdóttir, Steinunn Bragadóttir, Sigríður Finnbogadóttir and Freyja Barkardóttir, board members in feminist finance, write:
If you happen to be walking through a cemetery on October 24th and hear deep creaks, we want you to know that there is nothing to fear. These are just the women who walked out on International Women's Day in 1975 and have since left the confines of this world, turning in their graves over the fact that we are here, 47 years later, and the gender pay gap still exists.
There may be no reason to be afraid, but there is reason to be angry. Even furious. The slow pace of eliminating gender pay inequality is unacceptable. The same can be said for other challenges to equality, such as unequal caregiving responsibilities and women's ill health related to the special pressures of work and private life, as well as gender bias in the health system, where certain diseases of women are disproportionately treated. These problems cannot be separated from each other – a society that gives itself a generous discount when it comes to setting women's wages shows the same indifference when it comes to equalizing caregiving responsibilities and providing adequate health care for people of all genders, to name a few. The pay inequality is directly related to, fuels and perpetuates other inequalities, and that is yet another reason to eliminate it.
Gender-based pay inequality can be largely attributed to the gender-based division of jobs and industries. The equal pay provision of the Equality Act, which came into force in 2021, stipulates that women, men and people with a neutral gender registration shall be paid the same salary and enjoy the same benefits for the same or equally valuable work. The equal value approach of the equal pay provision implies the need to correct the valuation of traditional women's work. We have high hopes for the work of the action group on equal pay and equality in the labor market and that solutions will be proposed that will end the embarrassing period of the widening gender pay gap in the equality paradise of Iceland.
We at Feminist Finance are concerned about the financing of the actions that will inevitably have to be taken if the valuation of women's work is to be adjusted. It would have been preferable to see more detailed evidence that the government is preparing this adjustment with regard to revenue generation, as we point out in our commentary on the budget proposal for 2023. Carelessness can create systemic risks for the treasury. The cost of retroactive wage adjustment in the event of a court case, which the state would risk losing, could amount to billions of krónur for the treasury , cf. international developments and case law. In New Zealand, a court case in 2013 led to a 14-49% wage adjustment for an entire profession and the cost amounted to approximately 180 billion krónur. It is not only a matter of justice to take immediate action to correct the valuation of women's work, but also sensible economic management for employers to stop giving themselves discounts when setting women's wages, as has been the case for decades.
In addition to correcting the valuation, consideration must be given to the conditions and pressures that many women's professions experience, for example at Landspítali. A new Landspítali will not fully solve the existing problem and budgets must be increased to solve the staffing problem and pressures that have arisen in the health system in recent years. In this country, there is a shortage of health workers, and staffing the health service is a prerequisite for providing safe and efficient health care.
It is unwise and unsustainable to invest in the education of doctors , nurses and paramedics but to nurture the professions so poorly that the people who work there do not trust themselves to do their jobs due to working conditions, physical and mental strain and stress. In October 1975, women walked out, but in recent months we have also seen women walk out of jobs in the health system – and not come back.
Unacceptable conditions in the labor market, in addition to care responsibilities and gender-based violence, are among the factors that potentially explain the large increase in disability pension recipients among women aged 50–66. At a time when governments need to respond to the challenges of an aging population, including the prospect of a large relative increase in the number of people of retirement age and a relative decrease in the number of people in the labor market, it is highly unwise not to invest in measures that can prevent women from leaving the labor market far before their due date. We need everyone. Although measures to respond to this may be costly, they will not only lead to positive changes for large groups of women, but in the long term also to positive economic effects, such as increased revenue for the treasury due to increased labor force participation and reduced spending on social security and health care.
Feminist finance has pointed out that in order to undertake actions that have a high value for equality and social welfare, funding must be adequate. In the budget proposal for 2023, the government is effectively announcing cuts in the coming years, with an emphasis on meeting the increased or new spending and austerity demands that are included in it. There are no signs of revenue generation that the leaders of the two government parties have advocated, such as a whale tax, an increase in fishing fees, and an increase in taxes on capital income. It is quite remarkable that the policy of the government leaders is so absent from the bill and that the main strengthening of the revenue side of the bill is an increase in taxes on personal consumption, which will inevitably be worse for lower-income groups. The government must take the project seriously, apply prioritization and fair revenue generation so as not to skimp on equality and welfare issues.
