How does one solve the ever existing problem of gender pay gap? Well, get rid of it – the way Iceland has.
While the rest of the world faces the issue of unequal pay for men and women for the same kind of work, Iceland has come out to give women of the country the best New Year’s gift – the government has made it illegal for men to get paid more than women for the same job on 1 January, as reported by Al Jazeera.
Gender pay gap problem persists in every country, but Iceland has become the first country in the world to ban the practice.
The law is simple – companies with more than 25 employees have to obtain a government certification of equal pay policies, the companies that fail to obtain the certification, will have to pay a fine.
"The legislation is basically a mechanism that companies and organisations [will use to] 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," Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind, Board member of the Iceland Women's Rights Association told Al Jazeera.
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.Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind, Board member, Iceland Women’s Rights Association
Iceland has been rated as the world's most gender-equal country by the World Economic Forum for the last nine years in their Global Gender Gap Report.
Since the global gender gap report’s inception in 2006, Iceland has improved close to 10 percent of its gender gap, better than any of the other countries for the last 11 years.
According to the Al Jazeera report, the bill was passed by Iceland's government and was supported by the opposition as well when tabled in the parliament, where about 50 percent of the member of parliament are women.
The country's government plans to eradicate the gap completely by 2020.
(With inputs from Al Jazeera)
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