Social regulation of the gender pay gap in the EU

Summary

The research paper "Social regulation of the gender pay gap in the EU" by Mark Smith, published in 2012, addresses the enduring challenge of the gender pay gap within the European Union. Smith defines the gender pay gap as the difference between men’s and women’s hourly pay, divided by men’s hourly pay. The central premise of the paper is that despite more than thirty years of equal pay legislation, the disparity in earnings between men and women has proven remarkably resilient, persisting across all EU Member States irrespective of their individual institutional frameworks. This resilience highlights a significant policy conundrum, given the EU's stated commitment to gender equality. Smith's methodology involves a critical review of the European regulatory landscape, particularly focusing on its evolution and the role assigned to "social partners." The paper analyzes how the EU's approach to gender equality has shifted since the inception of the European Employment Strategy, moving towards "soft law" mechanisms with more limited formal legislative ambitions. In this changed environment, the European Commission has increasingly emphasized the involvement of social partners—such as trade unions and employer organizations—in tackling the gender pay gap. The study critically evaluates the effectiveness and implications of this reliance on social partners for addressing persistent pay inequalities. It examines the mechanisms through which social partners are expected to contribute and assesses the outcomes of their engagement within the broader EU policy framework. The key findings of the paper underscore the limitations of the current EU strategy. Smith observes that despite the increased focus on social partners and the promotion of actions like better application of employment policies and encouraging social responsibility among employers, the gender pay gap had not shown any significant sign of narrowing by the time of the paper's publication. This suggests that while social partners are seen as crucial actors in the social regulation of pay inequalities, their efforts under a "soft law" regime may not be sufficient to overcome deeply entrenched structural and cultural factors contributing to the pay gap. The paper implies that the shift towards less prescriptive, more voluntary approaches might inadvertently contribute to the stagnation in progress towards genuine pay equality. The implications are significant for EU policymaking, suggesting a need to re-evaluate the efficacy of relying predominantly on voluntary social dialogue and "soft law" in achieving substantive change in gender pay equality across the diverse economic and social contexts of the EU.