French working women suffer a bigger pay gap than their European neighbours. A new law wants to force companies to rebalance the pay scale so that women are paid equally with men and it wants to do it by 2010.

French women earn 20 percent less than male co-workers

France's working women enjoy a lot of advantages women in other countries can only dream of — subsidised childcare, long maternity leaves, the 35-hour work week. But all this may obscure the fact that there is still a significant gender pay gap in France, higher than in the rest of Europe, and the target of a new law to rebalance the pay scale.

Thirty years after the European Union passed equal-pay legislation, region-wide there is still a pay gap of 16 to 17 percent in the private sector and 12 percent in the public sector.

But in France, the gender pay gap currently stands at 20 percent in the private sector. A recently introduced bill wants to not just bring France in line with its neighbours but establish equal pay for men and women in France. And it sets a date for accomplishing that goal: December 31, 2010

What the law proposes

The proposed law would require French companies to carry out their own audits every year that would compare salaries to gender. The law also sets criteria for acceptable for pay differences; unless companies can justify the differences in their pay scale, they will have to increase wages to compensate equally, said Robin Chater, Secretary General of the Federation of European Employers (FedEE).

"The French government has decided that people working in the same company doing similar work have to be paid the same," said Chater. "Of course, you can always go to court to complain if you find this isn't the case. However, the French believe that now the employer should take responsibility for this rather than the employee."

Nadja Salson, an officer overseeing gender equality issues for the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), feels the French are taking the correct route.

"From experience, in various member states there hasn't been much progress in reducing the pay gap between women and men without sanctions on employers. We support the French," she said.

"Even in Finland, one of the most progressive countries, along with Sweden, in terms of equal pay legislation, they have recently toughened up sanctions on employers because the legislation wasn't being implemented. It's the same in a lot of countries," said Salson.

The 'real' wage gap

Some French women would say the situation is even more unequal than the official numbers indicate.

Perfégal, a company based in Finistère, was founded to help the government and private companies fight all forms of discrimination and, most specifically, level the playing field between men and women in the workplace. Its client list includes the Formule 1 hotel chain, La Poste, and the regional counsel of Brittany.

Perfégal estimates that the real pay gap in France is closer to 27 percent, although women make up 45 percent of the French workforce. Its directors point not only to blatant discriminatory wage practices but widespread 'Mommy-tracking' — facilitated by all those state-provided benefits — that keeps women largely out of management positions.

Only some 17 percent of French companies have female executives, although Perfégal surveys indicate that female-managed companies actually boast a better financial record compared to male-led competitors.

Perfégal directors and others argue that the French wage gap can't really be completely redressed until women break through this glass-ceiling.

Some observers also point to a culture wary both of 'positive discrimination' and any expression of feminist militancy, a phenomenon associated with the 'anglo-saxons' that the French, male and female, find off-putting.
 

Alternative methods

Another sticky point of the French law, however, is that it sets a deadline, a problematic approach to any social problem.

Chater, for example, sees the French ruling as commendable but has doubts about them being able to pull it off.

"Trying to iron out the problem by a set date is already a challenge. If you do something like this collectively it is more difficult, as well as being very time-consuming," he says.

"The French will also have to measure performance and work out the difference between legal and illegal appraisal processes," says Chater, who forecasts a ten percent increase in overall wage costs in France.

Another path, according to Chater, could have been to enable French employees to take equal pay cases to court more easily. The Irish system for instance, he says, has an equality commissioner where you can lodge a complaint first "without having to make a big thing of it."

The EPSU itself is trying to develop 'preventive measures' so that countries can avoid resorting to sanctions.

A common problem, according to Salson, is that when you point to the pay gap, employers argue that there is not money to redress it. 

But in Finland, trade unions, employers and employee's representatives — working in the context of a bigger plan for gender equality — have set aside public money to fill the wage gaps private companies cannot, said Salson.

"EPSU favours the preventive and collective approach. If you have to resort to a court case so be it, but we don't think it is the best way of ensuring equality in the workplace," says Salson.

Time will tell

Whether it is a court case brought forward by an employee or a fine imposed on a recalcitrant company, organisations risk loosing not only money but time in the process.

The path to equal pay is a long a complicated one, linked into other public policies such as child-care and care for the elderly.

Salson herself doesn't see Europe reaching the end of the equal pay road before the end of the 21st century.

"It will all depend on the willingness and commitment of employers and trade unions to make sure they have this as a priority on their agenda," Salson said.

February 2006

Copyright Expatica

Subject: Live in France, equal pay, women's rights