Understandings and discussions regarding the gender pay gap in Norway. Report by the gender pay gap and gender care gap project Report 2016:02

This report presents results from six interviews with people that are responsible for/or negotiate in collective bargaining, and/or participate in the managing of human resources in their company. The questions applied to the interviewees’ own workplace as well as to the Norwegian labour market more generally and captured the interviewees’ viewpoints about women and men’s situation on the labour market, possible gender differences in employees’ competence, productivity, career ambitions and wages, and the availability and use of work-family-reconciliation measures on the workplace. The interviews revealed two different understandings of reality when it comes to a possible gender pay gap in Norway, namely one of gender equality and one of gender difference. \nAccording to the first understanding, gender equality, there are no differences between men and women on the labour market in Norway, and there is not really a gendered wage gap, at least not at the company level. The interviewees emphasize that men and women have equal opportunities on the labour market and justify this by general and more specific descriptions of women’s labour market position. First, equal opportunities occur in a society where the dual-earner-family model is the norm. Women have entered the labour market and higher education in large numbers, and generous work-family policies enable parents to combine family and employment. Second, equal opportunities occur in a work environment where the ideal competence is not gender labelled. This reflects that the informants’ work in an environment where gender-neutral skills are valued. Third, equal opportunities occur in an environment where flexible work arrangements are offered, where full-time work is the norm and high work commitment is expected. Flexible working hour opportunities facilitate the combination of work and family life, but still, work devotion and continuous availability is expected. \nThe main argument in the second understanding, called gender difference, is that there is, in fact, a gender-related pay gap in Norway, and that this is related to women and men’s different opportunities and choices. This is supported by two explanations. First, the interviewees emphasize the gendered choices in working life. The gender pay gap is explained by the fact that economic rewards and working conditions vary across sectors and industries, and also that women and men have different skills and chose different social roles at the workplace. Second, the interviewees’ maintain that when children arrive, women are more likely than men to reduce their working hours. This is related to structural differences in women and men’s position on the labour market in that women more often than men work in the public sector where part time is common and wages are typically somewhat lower than in the private sector. \nThe interviewees’ descriptions of gender-equality reflect that they themselves work in high-skilled middle class professions and at workplaces where flexible work hours and home-office are offered, where part-time work is rare, where most employees have high work commitments and career ambitions, and where competence is seen as gender neutral. In contrast to the gender blindness that characterizes