The Centre for Research in Employment and Work (CREW) is proud to produce a report - International mechanisms to revalue women's work: research - for the Scottish Government on the undervaluation of women’s work. Professor Sian Moore, Heather Wakefield (Visiting Research Fellow) and Dr Laura William investigated different approaches across the globe to address the undervaluation of women’s work and considered their applicability to the Scottish Context.
The key findings showed that despite the Scottish’s Government’s commitment to equal pay, women’s work in Scotland remains undervalued and this undervaluation is a key driver of the gender pay gap, especially in heavily gender segregated sectors. Key recommendations were based on an analysis on international initiatives.
Firstly, the report recommends the strengthening of collective bargaining in particular an extension of sectoral collective bargaining to social care in line with the Feeley Report recommendations and the creation of a National Care Service to align the health and social care workforce. Wider recommendations included the implementation of gender-neutral job evaluation schemes particularly in the private sector and updating of public sector job evaluation schemes. The latter is only possible through improved funding. The report encourages the Scottish Government to reconsider its approach to privatisation and contracting out which negatively impacts the valuation of women’s work, to develop minimum contract standards for social care service, abandon zero hours contracts and require the payment of the real living wage in public sector contracts.
Despite employment law being a reserved area for Westminster, the report calls for the Scottish Government to strengthen gender pay gap reporting regulations under the Scottish Specific Duties Regulation 2012 with the involvement of trade unions, extend pay gap reporting measures to race and ethnicity and consider its extension to those on standard and nonstandard contracts. The report advocates for improved education and training around undervaluation of women’s work, awareness of equal pay legislation and in particular job evaluation through the creation of Pay Equity Commissioner who would lead negotiations with key stakeholders.
Finally, the report recommends the Scottish Government should continue to lobby the UK Government to develop more stringent equal pay legislation which favours collective negotiated solutions over the current individual complaints-based approach. These improvements would include a duty on employers to review their pay practices, a levelling up of women’s pay to men, the creation of proxy comparators and the evolution of Employment Tribunals.
We are proud to help the Scottish Government further their commitment to equal pay through the implementation of the recommendations of this report.
Professor Sian Moore
Professor in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, Director, Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) and Co-Director, Centre for Research on Employment and Work (CREW)
Dr Laura William
Associate Professor of Employment Relations and Equality, Director of Diversity Interest Group, Co-Director of Centre for Research in Employment and Work
