Iceland shows the way in 2018.
The Nordic island nation has become the first country to legalise equal pay for both genders. The Icelandic Parliament has passed a new law, making it illegal to pay men more than women for the same work. The law, which was introduced in the Parliament on International Women’s Day (March 8) in 2017, came into force on the very first day of 2018.

House of Parliament, Reykjavik

As per the new law, any organisation with more than 25 employees will have to obtain government certification of its equal-pay policies. Or else, they will have to pay fines. Women in Iceland have welcomed the new law and expressed hope that it will help eradicate gender discrimination at workplaces completely by the end of 2020.
In 2017, thousands of women staged protests against discrimination of remuneration. It is to be noted that Iceland has secured its place in the list of ‘most gender-equal country’ (after nine years) prepared by the World Economic Forum. Interestingly, 50% of members of the Icelandic Parliament are women.
Senior board member of the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind said: “The legislation is basically a mechanism that companies and organisations … evaluate every job that’s being done, and then they get a certification after they confirm the process if they are paying men and women equally. It’s a mechanism to ensure women and men are being paid equally. We have had legislation, saying that pay should be equal for men and women for decades now. But, we still have a pay gap.”

Reykjavik

She thanked people of Iceland – one of the fastest-improving countries in the world – for supporting the Bill. “I think that now people are starting to realise that this is a systematic problem that we have to tackle with new methods. Women have been talking about this for decades and I really feel that we have managed to raise awareness, and we have managed to get to the point that people realise that the legislation we have had in place is not working, and we need to do something more,” stressed Aradottir Pind.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das