Each 18 September is commemorated as United Nations (UN) International Equal Pay Day.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes books on how to achieve equal payment systems.
The UN Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC) website explains:
Who We Are
The EPIC Secretariat comprises the ILO, UN Women and the OECD. Steering Committee members today include Canada, Egypt, Iceland, Jordan, New Zealand, Panama, South Africa, Switzerland, the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Other EPIC stakeholders include Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Republic of Korea, Peru, Portugal, United Kingdom and other national workers’ and employers’ organizations as well as a number of private sector companies and civil society organizations. EPIC also includes Equal Pay Champions who are influential individuals who advocate for equal pay in their personal capacity.
Our Vision
We have a vision of an equal and inclusive world of work, in which women and men receive equal pay for work of equal value across all countries and sectors. In line with the United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development, we intend to make this vision a reality by 2030. By 2030, we want to see universal ratification of ILO Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) and visible efforts and results by governments and the private sector to implement equal pay initiatives.
What We Do
EPIC acts at the global, regional and national levels to support governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, and other stakeholders to take concrete steps to reduce the gender pay gap. EPIC accelerates progress towards gender pay equity by raising awareness, sharing knowledge, embracing innovation and scaling up initiatives and programmes that have already yielded positive results. The Coalition also provides support to improve legislation, build capacity and strengthen monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
Widespread awareness, built on a strong foundation of empirical evidence, is crucial for tackling discrimination, which often reinforces the gender pay gap. Our work includes advocacy campaigns and equal pay conferences, meetings and sharing of good practices to increase public awareness and media coverage on the issue.
The concept of equal pay for work of equal value means that women and men have the right to receive equal remuneration for work of equal value:
This means ensuring that women and men working in identical or similar jobs receive the same pay.
It also means that women and men should get equal pay when they do work that is completely different but can be shown to be of equal value, when evaluated based on objective criteria. These objective criteria take into account factors such as skills, qualifications, working conditions, levels of responsibility and effort required by the job.
Evaluating jobs based on gender-neutral criteria allows us to address the gender pay gap as a systemic issue, often tied to assumptions and stereotypes about the value of jobs that are “typically” seen as “women’s work”. It highlights the fact that women are often concentrated in sectors that are under-valued – such as care work – even though they involve high levels of responsibility and effort, and multiple specialized skills. To effectively tackle the gender pay gap, it is essential to discuss pay inequality across different sectors and occupations, as well as within them.
Objective job evaluations can also positively impact other groups that often experience discrimination, such as migrants and refugees, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and LGBTI people…
Currently, across all regions, countries and sectors, women are paid less than men:
The gender pay gap is symptomatic of many factors, including discrimination. Women are more likely than men to work in low-quality jobs under vulnerable conditions, including low pay. Women who avail of maternity and parental leave and take time off work to care for children can experience long-term negative impacts on their careers and pay. These adverse effects also carry over into retirement: compared to men, women have both lower pension coverage and lower pension benefits, due to lower earnings and intermittent career paths. The combination of these factors means that women are often more vulnerable to poverty than men, even when factors such as background, education and experience are taken into account.
Recent years have seen a sharp rise in non-standard forms of employment, such as part-time and temporary employment. While non-standard work arrangements can create more employment opportunities, they are also associated with greater income insecurity, lower earnings, and limited potential for skills upgrading and career progression. Women are more likely than men to work in non-standard arrangements, particularly in part-time employment, often against their preferences.
The drivers of pay inequality are complex and so far, progress on solving the problem has been incremental. But the challenge is not insurmountable. EPIC is uniquely positioned to catalyze action on equal pay by leveraging the expertise of stakeholders around the globe, investing in tried-and-tested solutions and promoting innovative new approaches to closing the gender pay gap by 2030.
There are numerous ways to meet the goal of pay equity between women and men. Measures can include for example wage transparency laws, certification, objective gender-neutral job evaluations, collective bargaining, labour inspection, and many more. Amongst the many measures and efforts to ensure equal pay for work of equal value, it is important to distinguish what works and what can be improved and how. Identifying such good practices, therefore, is key to achieving pay equity. To select which instrument or other measures can be qualified as a good practice, EPIC has put together a set of criteria available here. Members of the coalition can submit their tools and measures for assessment to the EPIC Secretariat.
Gender wage disparity in Thailand
In 2017, research on the subject was conducted by Assistant Professor Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat in the School of Economics at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC); Assistant Professor Jessica Vechbanyongratana of the Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University; and Assistant Professor Yong Yoon of the Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University who co-authored a study, Is Thailand’s Labor Market Really Woman Friendly? Revisiting the Declining Gender Wage Gap.
In 2018, The Bangkok Post published an article about the gender pay gap in the Kingdom:
Currently, no legal requirement exists for employers in Thailand to collect, record, analyse or publish gender pay gap data and make it available to the public. However, similar to the UK, Thai employment laws contain provisions by which employers are legally required to treat male and female employees equally in their employment, unless the description or nature of work prevents such treatment.
In particular, on the pay issue, wage, overtime pay, holiday pay and holiday overtime pay must be equally fixed by the employer regardless of whether the employee is male or female, if the work to be performed is of the same nature, quality and quantity.
Despite the existence of the above provisions, they have rarely been enforced by the authorities and the employers. There exist a handful of Supreme Court decisions on the equal treatment between male and female employees, where the court decided that retirement policies which prescribed retirement age of female and male employees differently based purely on their gender are unlawful, and thus void. In those cases, the retirement age for female employees was set at 55, while that of their male counterparts was 60.
However there has not yet been any Supreme Court decision on the gender differences in pay. Issues that tend to dominate the labour headlines in the media in Thailand tend to concern minimum wage and the increase in the maximum rate of severance pay.
According to the Global Gender Gap Index, which has been used by the World Economic Forum as a framework for identifying gender-based disparities and tracking countries’ progress in closing gaps over time, Thailand ranked 75th out of 144 (the lowest representing the most progress towards gender parity) in the 2017 edition of the report. Specifically on the issue of wage equality for similar work, Thailand scored 0.763 in 2017, where zero represents absolute imparity and 1 is absolute parity.
The enactment of the Gender Equality Act BE 2558 in 2015 is another positive step taken by the government towards promoting gender equality. This act does not, however, address the issue of pay in itself, but equality issues in general.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)