Although progress is being made on tackling the gender pay gap, it is still an issue in lots of countries. We wondered how the courts in various countries deal with claims of a gap between the pay of men and women for equal work.

In this survey of 17 of our Ius Laboris law firms, we discuss the notion of equal pay, but note that this is not the same as the fairness or unfairness of the pay people receive. A company may, for instance, offer salaries to a group of people that are above or below the market rate. The issue we focus on here is whether women in that group may be paid less than men, simply because they are women and not for any rational, defensible reason to do with the job itself.

Most countries have some law or regulation on equal pay (Singapore being the exception, although it does have guidelines on rewarding employees fairly) and a lot has already been written on these initiatives, aiming at combating the wage gap. However, there have been hardly any studies of court decisions or settlements on equal pay, to our knowledge. To try to fill this gap, we have been working on an overview of how the laws on equal pay are being treated by the courts, the issues most often raised during court proceedings and the difficulties faced by both workers and employers in defending their claims. There are few general rules that apply to all countries, but we have found that a number of concepts are interpreted in a similar way in a range of countries.

The first thing worth...

Read Full Story: https://www.mondaq.com/employment-litigation-tribunals/1231674/equal-pay-and-...