Cathrine Holst
7 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory:
Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
Equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value, is a central slogan for the women’s
movement and an established principle in international law.1 How can equal pay
be justified? Which normative concerns and arguments speak against the equal
pay principle; what speaks in favour of it? In the international academic literature
normative discussions of equal pay, also referred to as “comparable worth”, go on in
different branches of gender studies, in economics, as well as in moral and political
philosophy. A central ambition of this chapter is to investigate the relationship
between these debates going on in the academic field and the equal pay controversy
as it has been unfolding in Norway. A closer comparison shows that familiar
arguments in academic exchanges are present in this local controversy but that the
Norwegian equal pay exchanges are characterized by a richer normative structure
in that a broader set of reasonable concerns and arguments are raised. How can
this discrepancy be understood? Why is the Norwegian controversy different and
seemingly more advanced? Several hypotheses are discussed, and it is argued that the
different grammar of the academic and the “local” debate in this case is hard to explain
without reference to institutional variation and the relationship between institutional
and normative structure: The added concerns and arguments of the Norwegian equal
pay debate have as their template a particular institutionalization of working life
relations and wage setting. This finding has general implications for how we conceive
of the relationship between empirical investigations and normative argumentation
and theorizing. More specifically, it is argued for a particular relationship between
awareness of and inquiries into institutional variation and the strongest possible
testing of normative arguments and principles.
1 The principle was included in the constitution of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in
1919. Convention Number 100 concerning equal remuneration for men and women workers for work
of equal value (ILO-100) came into force in 1952. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from
1948 the principle was made part of article 23 (“Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to
equal pay for equal work”), whereas article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights from 1966 guarantees “fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value”,
and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women from 1979, article 11, ensures the right of women and men to “equal remuneration, including benefits, and to equal
treatment in respect of work of equal value”. Other equal pay articles in international law includes
the famous Article 119 on equal pay (later Article 141 EC, now Article 157 TFEU) in the Treaties of Rome
(1957), the only article on social policy in the European Union’s (EU) original treaty placing a direct
obligation on the member states.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
Is Equal Pay Justified? The Standard Academic Debate on Comparable Worth 119
The first part of this chapter presents the central arguments for and against
equal pay or comparable worth in international academic literature. The second part
elaborates on the Norwegian equal pay controversy. What are the key arguments? And
how do these arguments differ from the standard pro and con equal pay arguments
that we know from academic discourse? The third part discusses how the identified
discrepancy between the academic and “the local” can be explained. Particular
weight is put on the relationship between the characteristics of the Norwegian
comparable worth controversy and the Norwegian working life institutionalization,
and how this relationship – in this case – contributes to a periphery advantage.
The final part revisits the debate on the relationship between normative theory and
empirical scholarship and takes up the role of institutional analysis.
7.1 Is Equal Pay Justified? The Standard Academic Debate on Comparable Worth
Wage structure and income patterns are important research topics in empirical
social science, not least among economists and sociologists. Here “equal pay”
occurs, when it occurs, as a descriptive category used to describe this or that wage
distribution according to some more detailed operational definition of “equal pay”,
or in explanations, typically in studies that seek to explain why instances of “unequal
pay” occur.
The focus here is rather on the normative debate of whether “equal pay” or
“comparable worth” is worth defending. Contributions to this debate come from
different branches of gender studies and feminist theory, including feminist
economics, but also from other branches of economics and from ethics and political
theory.
The ambition of this section is not to make a detailed review of the available
literature, and even less to provide a normative assessment of whether equal pay
is defensible. Rather, the idea is to lay out the more or less standard international
academic debate on why – or why not – comparable worth is – or is not – worth
defending. What are the arguments on both sides that are typically found? How does
the equal pay controversy conventionally play itself out in academic discourse?
7.1.1 Standard Contra Arguments
Generally, three standard arguments can be listed on the sceptical side: a justice
argument, a theoretical argument and an efficiency argument. Some critics subscribe
to all three arguments or at least more than one (for example, Aaron & Lougy, 1986;
Hill & Killingworth, 1989; Paul, 1993), while some emphasize only one of them, for
example the efficiency argument, while explicitly dismissing one or more of the
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
120 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory: Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
others (for example, Roback, 1986; Jacobsen, 1998). The justice argument or line of
reasoning dismisses equal pay on the basis of a certain conception of justice and
moral right. The basic contention is that well-functioning markets distribute pay and
other goods fairly, and thus that work should be recognized and paid according to
its market value and not according to market-independent standards of value and
equal value (Paul, 1993, pp. 9-22; Aldrich & Buchele, 1986; Killingworth, 1990; Pincus
& Shaw, 1998; O’Neill, 2000). This gives little scope or no place for equal pay ideas
or policies. At the heart of this argument is a defence of the primary moral status
of private autonomy and individual liberties, including economic liberties, and the
assumption that, generally speaking, the market value of work is the “right” value,
since the market value of transaction objects, be it goods, services, capital or labour,
are the aggregated outcomes of individuals applying their rightful liberties. From this
perspective any equal pay project is suspect, opening up for immoral and disrespectful
private sphere intrusions.
This approach, it must be emphasized, does not allow for direct discrimination:
If women are paid less because of sexist prejudices among employers, this is typically
considered a problem. On this basis it supports anti-discrimination laws. In addition
there is a general belief that the free market mechanism over time will work against
prejudice-based discrimination: Assuming that employers primarily are after maximal
productivity and profits, the belief is that employers over time will adjust what may
be prejudiced-based wage setting to what is optimal for productivity. If so, what may
be of aggregated wage differences between women and men represents no injustice.
Such differences would then be the result of systematic differences in work-related
preferences among male and female employees, women opting for lower positions
in low productivity industries and sectors, or crowding in some industries or sectors,
increasing labour supply and creating downward pressure on wages in these parts of
the economy. There is also the possibility that women are actually less productive,
due to, for example, a stronger family orientation.
Secondly, there is the theoretical argument that there are no objective criteria
of value that different categories of work can be assessed as equal or unequal with
reference to (Paul, 1993, pp. 23-27; Aldrich & Buchele, 1986; Killingworth, 1990; Pincus
& Shaw, 1998; O’Neill, 2000; but see also England, 1992). Any proposals of evaluation
criteria will be controversial and partial, in accordance with some citizens’ subjective
preferences, and at odds with others: There are no clear-cut ways of deciding beyond
disagreement the value of different work characteristics, tasks and responsibilities or
of different kinds of training and education. Some may value industrial work above
nursing or accounting, teaching above engineering or banking, leadership qualities
and practical experience above academic training, while for others it is the other way
around. A secondary justice argument against equal pay follows from this: If a state is
to enforce equal pay based on criteria of value and equal value as something different
from market value, it cannot do so impartially. A state enforcing equal pay has thus
stopped short of being the neutral arbitrator a just state ought to be and turned into
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
Is Equal Pay Justified? The Standard Academic Debate on Comparable Worth 121
a technocratic regulator operating on the basis of controversial notions of what is
valuable and good.
Finally, there is the efficiency or productivity argument that equal pay will result
in intolerable productivity losses and inefficiencies (see for example Aldrich &
Buchele, 1986; Wilborn, 1986; Hill & Killingworth, 1989; Killingworth, 1990; O’Neill,
2000; but also Sorensen, 1994; Jacobsen, 1998). The contention is that relatively
unregulated markets maximize productivity – that is, if such markets work as they are
supposed to, labour moves from low productive firms and industries to more highly
paid positions in high productive firms and industries. Societies characterized by
too many or the wrong kind of legal and administrative restrictions and regulations
on free labour movement or by undue union influence on wage structure are thus
vulnerable to loss in productivity, since wage setting on the basis of market-external
political concerns increases the likelihood of over-payment of unproductive work and
under-payment of productive work. Within such a framing, equal pay policies are
regarded as highly problematic. In the short run they would simply result in lower
productivity. In the longer run they would, as far as they are effective, be detrimental
to women’s interests, since they contribute to increasing the price on female labour
and thus create incentives for employers to cut down and re-invest in ways that make
them less dependent on an “overpriced” workforce. Equal pay sceptics often add
to such general arguments analyses or references to analyses of concrete equal pay
experiments where the long-term effects on women’s payment are uncertain, zero or
negative (for example Killingworth, 1990; Rhoads, 1993; Aaron & Lougy, 1986; but
also Hammer, 1986; Gunderson, 1994; O’Neill, 2000).
It must be stressed that this line of reasoning – equal pay scepticism based on
efficiency concerns – can come together with the views on discrimination and free
choice typical among proponents of the justice argument against equal pay, but
also with very different “progressive” and even explicit feminist views (for example
Milkman, 1990; Jacobsen, 1998; Heath, 2009). Feminist equal pay sceptics figure there
to be both direct discrimination and prejudiced-based discrimination and other social
mechanisms contributing to unequal opportunities for women and men in economy
and society. However, as they see it, comparable worth is not the adequate remedy,
and they support instead equal opportunities policies, including affirmative action
(see also Lapidus & Figart, 1998; Jacobsen, 1998).
7.1.2 Standard Pro Arguments
Equal pay proponents’ standard reply to equal pay sceptics can also be summed up
in a package of three arguments. A justice argument is central as well for those in
favour of equal pay; in addition comes an empirical and a pragmatic argument. As
for the justice argument, it is claimed, basically, that equal recognition of, and so
equal pay for, work that is similar or of equal value, irrespective of its market value,
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
122 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory: Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
is a basic social justice concern (see Fraser, 2003; Krebs, 2003; Honneth, 2003 for
different versions of this argument, but also Treiman & Hartmann, 1981; Hartmann,
1985; Weinzweig, 1987; England, 1992; Pincus & Shaw, 1998; Macdonald & Merrill,
2002).2 Underlying here is a norm of equal treatment, that equal cases ought to be
treated equally (see van der Vleuten, 2008), implying also, or so it is assumed or
argued, that work that is “equal” (similar or of equal value) is to be treated “equally”
in the sense that it is to be given equal recognition. The second step is to establish
equal pay as a key indicator of equal recognition. Work is recognized as being equal or
of equal value by means of being paid equally, and the other way around: When work
is paid unequally, this is an expression of unequal recognition. Finally, it is pointed
out how unregulated markets in contemporary societies produce distributive patterns
that reflect the fact that in these societies, work that is similar or of equal value is
frequently paid unequally. There is thus nothing inherently just with these patterns,
equal pay proponents would say. Rather, if we care about equal pay, along with a set
of other just concerns, market-correcting measures are not only permissible but also
required.
The second, more empirically oriented argument in favour of comparable worth,
often pursued together with justice considerations, is focusing further on what
proponents regard as sceptics’ misconceived ideas of the role of markets. Here the
target is what critics believe are idealized, empirically ill-founded assumptions about
the actual working and institutionalization of markets and market behaviour (see,
for example, Johansen, 1984; Wilborn, 1986; Acker, 1989; Evans & Nelson, 1989;
England, 1992; Blum, 1993; Mutari, Figart & Power, 2001; Karamessini & Ioakimoglou,
2007). This pertains both to the idea that free markets over time will work against
prejudices and so result in “unbiased” employment practices regulated purely by
productivity concerns and to the idea that gender segregation in labour markets,
including the crowding of women in lower positions in low productivity industries
and sectors, therefore will be the result of relatively autonomous individual choices
among workers. Equal pay proponents refer here, on the demand side, to persistent
prejudices and biases against women and other groups in the labour market, and, on
the supply side, to how women’s working life adaptations reflect unequal opportunities
for women and men and not simply their “free choice”, even in the absence of direct
discrimination. Due to this, they would say, the contention that labour is moving
“freely” and regularly to high productivity firms, industries and sectors in absence
of equal pay and other “distorting” market regulations, is somewhat of a myth. In
addition, it is well known how labour markets even in free market economies are
regulated by legislation and structured by professional and union bargaining, not
2 Along with other such concerns. For example Nancy Fraser (2003) argues for justice understood
as “participatory parity”, and for “redistribution”, “recognition” and “democratization” as preconditions for realizing justice. Comparable worth figures here as a “recognition” claim.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
A Local Controversy: Equal Pay in a Scandinavian Context 123
least in the public sector (for example, Milkman, 1990). Markets and market behaviour
are thus already “distorted”, and regulating measures such as equal pay legislation
must be evaluated on the basis of their applicability and merits in real-life markets,
not on what we could expect in idealized situations. Hence, the approach to markets
among equal pay proponents and “progressive” equal pay sceptics do not necessarily
differ that much; what divides them is the more specific assessment of comparable
worth.
Finally, when all the above has been said, a pragmatic argument is typically
added by proponents, meant to target sceptics’ theoretical argument that there
are no impartial, objective criteria of value that different categories of work can
be assessed as equal or unequal with reference to. Or rather, even if there are
philosophical contributions with ambitions of connecting comparable worth to
non-partial, intersubjective claims of equal recognition and transcultural standards
of ethical life (see Honneth, 2003), the most common answer to the theoretical
there-are-no-objective-criteria argument is that this argument is exactly theoretical,
“philosophical” or “academic”. In practice agreements on practical, operational
indicators can be and have been reached (see, for example, Hartmann, 1985; England,
1992; Sorensen, 1994). Equal pay proponents can here refer to how job evaluation
schemes have been developed and included in national legislation and U.S. state
legislation, as well as at the local level in union-firm bargaining, and how this seems
to contribute to reducing gender-based wage gaps (Schwab, 1985; Wilborn, 1986;
Michael, Hartmann & O’Farrell, 1989; Rhoads, 1993; Gunderson, 1994; Lapidus &
Figart, 1998). Moreover, comparable worth seems in the end to reflect some common
moral intuitions, irrespective of whether philosophers manage to grapple with them
argumentatively or not, reflected not least in how the equal pay principle is firmly
established in international law.
7.2 A Local Controversy: Equal Pay in a Scandinavian Context
We move now to the equal pay controversy in Norway. Norway ratified Convention 100
of the International Labour Organization (ILO-100) in 1959, and § 5 of the Norwegian
Gender Equality Act passed in 1978 stated accordingly that “women and men shall
have equal pay3 for the same work or work of equal value”. How the expression “work
of equal value” was to be understood more specifically was not spelled out in the
article, but in preparatory documents “work of equal value” was defined as work
that appeared as fairly “similar”, and it was argued that the value of work could not
3 “Pay” refers here to ”ordinary remuneration for work as well as all other supplements or advantages or other benefits provided by the employer”.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
124 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory: Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
be compared meaningfully across trades and professions.4 Section 5 was however
amended in 2002 with reference to Norway’s international obligations and the EEA
agreement,5 and the article now states specifically that “women and men in the same
enterprise shall have equal pay for the same work or work of equal value” and that
this “shall apply regardless of whether such work is connected with different trades or
professions or whether the pay is regulated by different collective wage agreements”.6
The equal pay issue has been the topic of several rounds of rather extensive
public deliberations in Norway. The question that interested me at the outset was
the argumentative profile of these deliberations and how the standard arguments
on equal pay as we know them from international academic exchanges fared in
the Norwegian context. However, it soon became clear that a set of concerns and
arguments absent from these exchanges were just as important or more important in
the Norwegian debate.
The data analyzed for the purpose of this chapter are in part existing studies and
analyses of the 2002 amendment and the political process preceding it, including the
formal public hearing and the parliamentary debate (Tenden, 2001; Høgsnes, 2002;
Skjeie & Teigen, 2003) and in part two public reports on equal pay, one from 1997 on
job evaluation schemes and the 2008 Equal Pay Commission7 and the public hearing
of the latter. As for the more particular proponents of different views on equal pay in
the Norwegian case, they will be introduced only occasionally and in passing: The
point here is not to elaborate on the details of the political process, the proposed
policies or the more specific role of different actors but to expose some major concerns
and arguments on equal pay that are raised in this local controversy and that are
seemingly uncovered by the three-plus-three list in the previous section.
7.2.1 Additional Contra Concerns and Arguments
If we start with the equal pay scepticism, all the three standard critical arguments are
also raised in the Norwegian case. The efficiency or productivity argument against
equal pay regulations is the most common of the three; it is central to equal pay
4 Ot.prp. nr. 1 (1977-78) Lov om likestilling mellom kjønnene.
5 The Agreement of the European Economic Area from 1994 brings together the EU member states
and the EEA states that are members of EFTA (the European Free Trade Association) in the Internal
Market.
6 Ot.prp. nr. 6 (2001-2002) Om endringer i likestillingsloven mv.
7 NOU 1997: 10 Arbeidsvurdering som virkemiddel for likelønn (Job evaluation as equal pay policy)
and NOU 2008: 6 Kjønn og lønn. Fakta, analyser og virkemidler for likelønn (Gender and wages. Facts,
analyses and policies for equal pay). The commissions appointed to produce these reports consisted of
social scientists, social partners and civil society representatives, central administration bureaucrats
and experienced ex-politicians.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
A Local Controversy: Equal Pay in a Scandinavian Context 125
critics among the social partners, state agencies and ministries, and civil society
organizations, but is even highlighted by equal pay proponents as a worry and
“second thought” – for example, in both the equal pay-friendly public reports.8 The
standard theoretical argument, that there are no objective criteria of job value, and
the standard moral or justice argument about the right to economic freedom and
equal pay as an illegitimate private sphere intrusion, are also mobilized, even if less
frequently. The justice argument constitutes the backbone of employer organizations’
equal pay opposition9 and is also raised elsewhere – for example, in the sceptical
equal pay minority view of the Equal Pay Commission, whereas the theoretical
argument is mentioned more seldom and most often in passing.
However, this leaves out a central tenet of equal pay scepticism in the Norwegian
controversy, which is the contention that equal pay policies come into conflict with the
idea that pay should be set by means of collective struggles and negotiations between
unions and employers. Equal pay sceptics point out how collective bargaining in a
centralized system, sometimes with the state as a third negotiating partner, is key in
“the Norwegian model” of wage setting and worry or believe that pushing equal pay
legislation top-down will challenge or contribute to eroding a regime that has proven
to be both effective and fair. That is, what is mobilized against equal pay within this
framing is in part a moral or justice argument completely different from the standard
justice argument; in part an instrumental argument of what a centralized collective
bargaining system of wage setting is good for. The moral argument is conceptualizing
free collective bargaining as a democratic right for workers: Central to democracy is the
right to unionize, and workers’ organization and mobilization have earned unions their
rightful power in society, including decisive influence in wage bargaining processes.
This argument is typically pursued by some of the unions, including Norway’s largest
union federation (LO),10 which came out on the sceptical side both in the process
preceding the 2002 amendment and in the Equal Pay Commission hearing. These
unions also emphasize what they regard as the progressive redistributive effects of
the Norwegian wage setting system – free collective bargaining has contributed to
reduced inequalities.
Equal pay is thus framed to cause direct trouble for “democracy” – for societal
democratization through organizing labour and power to unions – and, indirectly, also
for “equality”, egalitarian social and economic distributions. In addition comparable
worth redistributions are targeted directly as being substantively unjust as far as they,
based on equations between job value and educational levels, imply raising wages in
8 An equal pay sceptic, President of BI Norwegian Business School Tom Colbjørnsen and member of
the Equal Pay Commission, dissented from this Commission's equal pay-friendly conclusions.
9 Consider, for example, the hearing report of the Norwegian Confederation of Enterprise (NHO).
10 The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
126 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory: Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
female-dominated public sector educational groups relative to wage levels in manual
work or in other groups.
Finally, the bargaining wage setting model is claimed to increase both de facto
legitimacy and overall national productivity. On these points, the equal pay sceptic
unions are accompanied by other sceptics, such as the central employer organizations
and public agencies and ministries external to the gender equality segment (the
labour ministry, the finance ministry, etc.). Even proponents often include these
concerns prominently in their discussions, even if they in the end conclude differently
on the specific effects of equal pay regulations. The Norwegian collective bargaining
system, its institutionalization and democratic and egalitarian underpinnings and
implications, is presented as producing trust, political stability and a consensus
culture that ensures swift and sound decision-making and high levels of citizens’
support. It is also presented as essential for the comparatively high productivity levels
of the Norwegian economy. The latter is even stressed by employer organizations
praising how “the Norwegian system” at its most optimal combines effective and
long-term productivity serving collective bargaining procedures with flexible marketbased wage setting.
7.2.2 Additional Pro Concerns and Arguments
Norwegian equal pay proponents also rely on the standard arguments familiar from
international academic exchanges. Both in the equal pay-friendly public reports and
in contributions to hearings by the gender equality ministry, the gender equality
and anti-discrimination ombud, female-dominated public sector unions (nurses,
teachers, etc.) and other equal pay proponents, we typically find the standard pro
package of justice arguments and pragmatic and empirical arguments: Equal pay is
a question of equal recognition and of what is right and just and a part of Norway’s
international human rights obligations; equal pay regulations are more applicable
than critics claim; and resistance against them is based on misleading ideas of market
behaviour and how the market works.
However, the richer set of concerns and arguments on the contra side requires
and gets additional responses. Generally, equal pay proponents also start out with
recognizing the merits of the Norwegian bargaining system and societal model and
emphasize how comparable worth and equal pay policies should be thought of and
implemented as far as possible within the normative and institutional framework
of this model, and not in ways that radically depart from it. An expression of this
consensus is how the principled equal recognition argument for comparable worth
and equal pay as an international legal obligation play a secondary role in the two
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
A Local Controversy: Equal Pay in a Scandinavian Context 127
equal pay reports, in particular the 2008 Commission.11 The same pragmatic strategy
is visible in both reports’ treatment of the standard theoretical argument against
equal pay – that there are no objective criteria of job value. This argument is generally
granted before both reports go on to discuss operational indicators, concrete
experiments and equal pay regulation policy by policy. Another expression of the
underlying consensus of the Norwegian model as a success model is also how the
policy discussions not least of the Equal Pay Commission stand out as considerably
less legalistic, less exclusively focused on comparable worth and less focused on the
idea of targeting unequal pay by means of developing and applying job evaluation
schemes than the policy discussions initiated by feminists and others in standard
academic exchanges on equal pay. The focus is rather on how to implement equal
pay through the bargaining system and with the state as a third partner (the 2008
Commission suggests, for example, that the state brings an “equal pay pot” to the
negotiation table), in combination with a set of gender-sensitive family and labour
market policies framed, not to ensure comparable worth directly, but to target the
gender pay gap more generally. The use of job evaluation schemes by the social
partners during wage negotiation is recommended by the 1997 Commission but toned
down in the 2008 report and not included in its prioritized recommendations.
Hence, when equal pay proponents go on targeting some of the redistributive
effects and certain normative and institutional blind spots of the Norwegian collective
bargaining model, they do so modestly and without challenging the model’s
basic characteristics.12 First, it is pointed out how some groups, typically femaledominated public sector educational groups, have benefited less from this model.
The central reason for this, critics argue, is the bargaining system’s inability to handle
the distributive effects and unfairness caused by gender segregation in the labour
market and patriarchal biases in wage setting processes, influencing employers and
also male-dominated unions. Secondly, the democracy argument for the Norwegian
bargaining system is problematized when it is pointed out how certain actors and
certain (male) interests are systematically privileged as this system currently works,
causing a gendered democratic deficit. Finally, equal pay proponents and sceptics
agree on the productivity merits of the Norwegian bargaining system, but proponents
see no reason why these merits will not persist if equal pay is implemented carefully
and pragmatically, relying on established procedures, approaches and routines.
11 Compare here with hearing reports produced by some of the female-dominated public sector unions, feminist activist organizations and state feminist machineries, where these concerns are primary.
12 They seem thus to adapt a strategy that would typically result in “layering”, see Mahoney and
Thelen (2009), Thelen (2009), and also Fredrik Engelstad’s contribution to this book.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
128 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory: Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
7.3 Why is the Local Controversy Seemingly Richer?
We have thus a situation where the Norwegian local pay controversy stands out
not only as different from what we would expect on the basis of standard academic
exchanges on what comparable worth is about, but seemingly also as richer or even
more advanced: This local controversy does include the listed standard arguments but
also a set of other arguments and concerns that seem to be important when deciding
on what to think about the equal pay principle and equal pay policies.
The question is how it turns out like this, and let me approach this question by
anticipating and reflecting on some possible responses to the picture I have drawn in
the two previous sections.
“Are not international academic debates argumentatively superior to a messy
national political controversy? You must have got it wrong”. Yes, contributions in
international academic debates would no doubt and of course tend to hold higher
academic standards than input produced by a civil society organization or a
governmental agency in the sense that academic discourse arguments are typically
(if not always), and also supposed to be, more stringently elaborated upon and more
rigorously scrutinized and tested. This is also the case with the equal pay controversy
if we compare, for example, philosophers’ accounts of the moral, individual, rightsbased case against equal pay with Norwegian business interests’ rough defence of free
markets or the equal recognition argument for equal pay as conceptualized by Axel
Honneth or Nancy Fraser with the attempts of formulating principle-based arguments
among Norwegian equal pay activists. That the academic is superior to the local in
this sense, even in the equal pay case, is not really put into question.
The point is rather that the Norwegian controversy seems to introduce new
concerns and arguments. On the contra-side, it introduces, as we have seen, a
justice argument against equal pay legislation with reference to the right to free
collective bargaining framed as a key democratic right for workers and workers’
unions. In addition to this comes a set of instrumental arguments for wage setting
through collective bargaining processes (and not through equal pay regulations
external to this process): a redistributive fairness argument, a de facto legitimacy
argument and also a productivity argument that is very different from the standard
productivity argument against equal pay. On the pro-side, the Norwegian controversy
contributes primarily with broadening the scope of the pragmatic response (more
and other measures than job evaluation schemes, equal pay policy making through
bargaining processes, etc.) – equal pay, it is argued, is practically implementable in
even more ways than what is standardly assumed, in addition to a pro-equal pay
productivity argument. To be sure, the equal pay pro-camp often enough highlights
how real life markets are already “perverted” and differ from idealized markets
(i.e. the standard empirical pro-equal pay argument). However, what we have here
in addition is a defence of such market “perversions”, or a certain combination of
them, as “better” for economic sustainability, productivity and long-term profits
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
Why is the Local Controversy Seemingly Richer? 129
than “non-perverted” markets. In the Norwegian case many equal pay sceptics and
proponents are indeed united in their defence of the Norwegian wage setting system
(“the Norwegian model”) – despite standard views, they claim, the level of marketexternal intervention institutionalized by this system is compatible with and even
stimulates productivity and growth. Where they differ then is in their assessment
of the relationship between equal pay claims and this, as they see it, productivity
enhancing system: Whereas equal pay sceptics worry that adaptations to such claims
will erode the model, proponents believe that the model is robust and flexible enough
to include them without compromising productivity.
“But more advanced? You have not showed that the added arguments will tip the
debate. You have not even shown that they are valid”. This is right. I have nowhere
argued that this or that of the added argument in the end strengthens or weakens the
case for equal pay. I have also not gone into assessing the more specific merits of each
of the arguments. What is the more exact normative status of the right to free collective
bargaining? Is it a proper “right”, and if so, what does it imply in the equal pay case?
What is the causal relationship between centralized, tripartite bargaining on the one
hand, and redistributive fairness, de facto legitimacy and productivity on the other?
Would equal pay introduced as a state-sponsored equal pay pot during negotiations be
effective? Would equal pay Norwegian-style regulations serve or hamper productivity?
The added arguments raise these and other questions that have not been given any
conclusive answers here, and the strength of the different arguments and the ultimate
“tipping”, will of course depend decisively on these answers. With regard to some
of the questions there will be research literature available to consider (for example
on the role and effects of the Norwegian bargaining system), but other questions are
highly open and left to be pursued properly.
However, none of the added arguments stand out as obviously unreasonable or
irrelevant – this is the (weaker) claim I want to make. Each of them may turn out
to be “good” or not to hold water, but on the face of it they seem to deserve our
attention and closer investigation. It is in this sense that the Norwegian controversy
is considered “richer” and even “more advanced” than the standard academic debate
in this chapter: It includes familiar arguments pro and contra equal pay, but also a set
of additional concerns and arguments that are not clearly flawed or beside the point.
“So the lesson then is that Scandinavian social democracy tends to produce
normative deliberations that are richer?” No, no such general conclusions can be
drawn. The argument here, and that will be spelled out in more detail below, is
that normative deliberations and policy debates are typically embedded in local
institutional contexts – institutional and normative structures are interconnected.
However, the fact that this is so is at the outset equally compatible with narrowmindedness and provinciality – that is, to disregard or be ignorant of reasonable
concerns and arguments that are or considered to be more “foreign” to local debates
and contexts (as when liberal and multicultural critics claim, as they recurrently
do, rightfully or not, that Norwegian public debate suffers from communitarian or
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
130 Institutional Variation and Normative Theory: Lessons from a Local Equal Pay Controversy
nationalistic biases). The point of this chapter’s discussions is that the Norwegian
equal pay controversy specifically turned out to include concerns and arguments with
a local institutional genesis in addition to the arguments we know from international
exchanges, contributing to making the overall debate richer, but nothing is or can be
claimed here about Norway, Scandinavia or social democracy implying that this will
always be the case in these settings.
“The contention then is that institutional and normative structures influence one
another and that this can result in enriched normative deliberations under special
circumstances”. Yes, this is exactly the point. Institutional theory and studies of
variations in institutional regimes stress how institutional characteristics and
constellations contribute to shaping discourse on norms and policies. A set of more
particular studies give further reason to expect interconnections between working life
and wage setting institutionalization and paths and angels in debates on distribution
and redistribution of pay in particular (see Martin & Thelen, 2007; Thelen, 2009;
Martin & Swank, 2010, 2012). The added arguments pro and con equal pay from the
Norwegian controversy are illustrative of this: Both the proposed conflict between
equal pay and democratic wage negotiations, productivity effects and implementation
issues are discussed with the Norwegian tripartite centralized bargaining system as a
central frame of reference (see Barth, Røed & Torp, 2002; Barth, Moene & Wallerstein,
2003; but also Martin & Swank, 2010). We have a situation, moreover, where standard
equal pay arguments as we know them from academic discourse are added to these
local concerns and approaches in the Norwegian controversy, but not the other way
around: The added arguments from this local controversy are completely absent from
the standard academic exchanges. There may be several reasons for this absence,
but a hypothesis would be that it is related to the fact that Norway is “periphery” and
Norwegian working life institutionalization is “untypical” and to the related fact that
academic deliberations on the equal pay principle generally have non-Scandinavian
and more “centre” wage setting institutions, regulations and procedures as their frame
of reference, explicitly, or implicitly, not least the U.S. system. If so, this suggests an
interpretation of the particular richness of the Norwegian equal pay controversy as
the outcome of a periphery advantage – that is, as the more or less unintended effect
of a situation where “centre” does what “centre” often does: namely, overlooks what
happens in the periphery, while “periphery” knows the periphery, but also the centre,
since “centre” is centre, and everyone has to relate to it.
It will be a task for future research to study more closely when this periphery
advantage mechanism strikes in Scandinavian political debate, resulting in a richer
and more advanced grammar in public debates, and when interconnections between
institutional and normative structures rather result in problematic biases and “lockins”.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
Lessons for Normative Theory 131
7.4 Lessons for Normative Theory
Summing up, the contributions of this chapter have been: to give an introduction to
the standard academic debate on equal pay going on in philosophy, economics and
certain branches of gender studies; to present the Norwegian equal pay controversy
with its additional arguments both for and against equal pay and to give an
interpretation of the particular profile and characteristics of the latter controversy
and of how this controversy deviates from standard academic exchanges in light of
insights from institutional theory.
There is also a lesson to be drawn for academic normative theory and argumentation
pertaining to how such scholarship relates to institutional theory and institutional
variation. The obvious reasons for why academics and others deliberating on whether
equal pay is a good idea or not need to acquaint themselves with scholarship on
institutional variation, and empirical variation generally, are concerns of feasibility
and implementability (Rothstein, 1994; Stemplowska, 2008; Elster, 2013): If the
equal pay principle, or rather alternative principles, are to shape social practices, we
need knowledge of such practices and the more detailed institutionalization of such
practices to know how more concretely to go about in this or that society or polity.
The discussions in this chapter suggest, however, an additional reason, namely
that awareness of and inquiries into institutional variation and the nexuses between
institutional and normative structures may be decisive for the strongest possible
testing of normative arguments and principles. Different institutional templates spur
typically different conceptualizations of relevant normative concerns and arguments,
and as far as one is unaware of or uninterested in this variation important substantial
argumentation could be overlooked and go unconsidered. The added arguments pro
and contra equal pay from the Norwegian controversy may or may not turn out to
be valid or tip the debate. They are, however, reasonable and seemingly relevant
arguments, and a testing of the normative viability of the equal pay case that does not
take them into account would seem to be weaker than a testing that does.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
132 References
References
Aaron, H. J. & Cameran M. L. (1986). The comparable worth controversy. Washington: The Brookings
Institution.
Acker, J. (1989). Doing comparable worth. gender, class and pay equity. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Aldrich, M. & Buchele, R. (1986). The economics of comparable worth. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Ballinger.
Barth, E., Moene, K. & Wallerstein, M. (2003). Likhet under press. Utfordringer for den skandinaviske
fordelingsmodellen. Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk.
Barth, E., Røed M. & Torp, H. (2002). Towards a closing of the gender pay gap. Country Report
Norway. Oslo: Institutt for samfunnsforskning.
Blum, L. M. (1991). Between feminism and labor. The significance of the comparable worth
movement. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Elster, J. (2013). Excessive ambitions (II). Capitalism and Society, 1, 3-34.
England, P. (1992). Comparable worth. Theories and evidence. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Evans, S. M. & Nelson, B. J. (1989). Wage justice. Comparable worth and the paradox of technocratic
reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fraser, N. (2003). Social justice in the age of identity politics. In N. Fraser & A. Honneth (Eds.)
Redistribution or recognition? A political-philosophical exchange. New York: Verso.
Gunderson, M. (1994). Comparable worth and gender discrimination: An international perspective.
Geneva: International Labor Office.
Hammer, E. R. (1986). Pay inequity: A guide to research on social influences. New York: Garland.
Hartmann, H. (Ed.) (1985). Comparable worth: New directions for research. Washington D.C.:
National Research Council.
Heath, J. (2009). Economics without illusions. Debunking the myths of modern capitalism. Toronto:
Broadway Books.
Hill, A. M. & Killingsworth, M. R. (Eds.) (1989). Comparable worth: analyses and evidence. Ithaca, N.
Y.: ILR.
Honneth, A. (2003). Redistribution as Recognition and The Point of Recognition. In N. Fraser & A.
Honneth (Eds.), Redistribution or recognition? A political-philosophical exchange. New York:
Verso.
Høgsnes, G. (2002). Likelønn: Forhandlingsstruktur og makt. In A. L. Ellingsæter & J. Solheim (Eds.).
Den usynlige hånd? Kjønnsmakt og moderne arbeidsliv, Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk.
Jacobsen, J. P. (1998). Policy application: Comparable worth. In J. P. Jacobsen (Ed.), The Economics of
Gender. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Johansen, E. (1984). Comparable worth: The myth and the movement. Boulder, Colorado: Westview.
Karamessini, M. & Ioakimoglou, E. (2007). Wage determination and the gender pay gap: A feminist
political economy analysis and decomposition. Feminist Economics, 13(1), 31-66.
Killingworth, M. R. (1990). The economics of comparable worth. Kalamazoo, Michigan: W. E. Upjohn.
Krebs, A. (2003). Arbeit und liebe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Lapidus, J. & Figart, D. M. (1998). Remedying unfair acts: U.S. pay equity by race and gender.
Feminist Economics, 4(3), 7-28.
Macdonald, C. L. & Merrill, D. A. (2002). It shouldn’t have to be a trade: Recognition and
redistribution in care work advocacy. Hypatia, 17(2), 67-83.
Mahoney, J. & Thelen, K. (2009). A theory of gradual institutional change. In J. Mahoney & K. Thelen
(Eds.), Explaining institutional change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, C. J. & Swank D. (2011). Gonna party like it’s 1899. Party systems and the origins of varieties
of coordination. World Politics, 63(1), 74-114.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM
References 133
Martin, C. J. & Swank, D. (2012). The political construction of business interests. Coordination,
growth, and equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, C. J. & Thelen, K. (2007). The state and coordinated capitalism: Contributions of the public
sector to social solidarity in postindustrial societies. World Politics, 60, 1-36.
Michael, R. T., Hartmann, H. & O’Farrell B. (Eds.) (1989). Pay equity: Empirical inquiries. Washington
D.C.: National Academy.
Milkman, M. (1990). Book Review: Ellen Frankel Paul, Equity and gender: The comparable worth
debate. Public Choice, 66, 99-100.
Mutari, E., Figart, D. M. & Power M. (2001). Implicit wage theories in equal pay debates in the United
States. Feminist Economics, 7, 23-52.
NOU 1997: 10 Arbeidsvurdering som virkemiddel for likelønn
NOU 2008: 6 Kjønn og lønn. Fakta, analyser og virkemidler for likelønn
Hearing reports to NOU 2008: 6. See http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/bld/dok/hoyringar/
hoeringsdok/2008/horing---nou-2008--6-kjonn-og-lonn/horingsuttalelser.html?id=505160
O’Neill, J. E. (2000). Comparable worth. See http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/ComparableWorth.html
Paul, E. F. (1993). Equity and gender. The comparable worth debate. London: Transaction Publishers.
Pincus, L. & Shaw, B. (1998). Comparable worth: An economic and ethical analysis. Journal of
Business Ethics, 17, 455-470.
Rhoads, S. E. (1993). Incomparable worth: Pay equity meets the market. Cambridge, United
Kingdom: Cambridge University.
Roback, J. (1986). A matter of choice: A critique of comparable worth by a sceptical feminist. New
York: 20th Century Fund.
Rothstein, B. (1994). Just institutions matter: The moral and political logic of the universal welfare
state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schwab, D. J. (1985). Job evaluation research and research need. In Heidi Hartmann (Ed.),
Comparable worth: New directions for research. Washington D.C.: National Research Council.
Skjeie, H. & Teigen, M. (2003). Menn imellom. Mannsdominans og likestillingspolitikk. Oslo:
Gyldendal Akademisk.
Sorensen, E. (1994). Comparable worth? Is it a worthy policy? Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press.
Stemplowska, Z. (2008). What’s ideal about ideal theory? Social Theory and Practice, 34(3).
Tenden, E. B. (2001). Hvorledes likestilling? En analyse av konstruksjonen av likestillingslovens
bestemmelser om likelønn, arbeidsplikt og seksuell trakassering 1990-2001. Hovedoppgave,
Institutt for statsvitenskap, Universitetet i Oslo.
Thelen, K. (2009). Institutional change in advanced political economies. British Journal of Industrial
Relations, 47, 471-498.
Treiman, D. & Hartmann H. (Eds.) (1981). Women, work and wages: Equal pay for jobs of equal value.
Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.
van der Vleuten, A. (2007). The price of gender equality. London: Ashgate.
Weinzweig, M. (1987). Pregnancy leave, comparable worth, and concepts of equality. Hypatia, 2(1),
71-101.
Wilborn, S. L. (1986). A comparable worth primer. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books.
Brought to you by | SIIS
Authenticated
Download Date | 6/21/16 10:27 AM