Iceland to enshrine equal pay for women and men in law
April 5, 2017
Legislation will be first in world to require private companies and government agencies to prove pay is fair or face fines
Iceland’s parliament has presented a bill that would require public and private businesses to prove they offer equal pay to employees, in what would be the first such requirement in the world.
The bill entails that companies and institutions of a certain size, 25 or more employees, undertake a certification of their equal-pay programmes, Thorsteinn Viglundsson, minister of social affairs and equality, said.
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Iceland ranks first on the World Economic Forum’s 2015 global gender gap index, followed by fellow Nordic nations Norway, Finland and Sweden.
But the new law aims to close the wage gap between men and women in the island nation of more than 323,000 people, Viglundsson said.
It has the support of both Iceland’s centre-right coalition government as well as the opposition – and nearly 50% of the lawmakers in parliament are women.
The law would take effect from January.
“The gender pay gap is unfortunately a fact in the Icelandic labour market and it’s time take radical measures; we have the knowledge and the processes to eliminate it,” Viglundsson said.
