Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Iceland's Gender Communists

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Jan. 6, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

22:21

Iceland's Gender Communists

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	Hello and I want to thank the Nordesk Forum for inviting me here because I'm a woman with a mission.
	I'm here to tell you about this new exciting tool that we are using in Iceland to fight the gender pay gap.
	Women in Iceland celebrate the 24th of October.
	On that day, in 1975, over 50,000 women all over the country went on a day strike and demanded action.
	When I say 50,000 women, that's quite a lot because at that time we were a population around 217,000.
	So half of the women that lived in the country at that time went and marched for equal pay.
	This woman's strike was a turning point for the feminist movement in Iceland.
	It was the day women came together and demanded to be recognized equal in society and on the labour market.
	We have passed legislation after legislation guaranteeing that men and women should be paid equal wage for equal work.
	Yet the pay gap remains.
	And in Iceland, to our horror, we found that after the financial collapse of 2008, the gender pay gap was in fact growing.
	Something had to be done.
	Legislation had not worked, education was not working, awareness campaigns have not worked, so what could we do?
	We turn to the tools of the bureaucrats, the technical, and so many people say it's quite boring, but the technical work of the international ESO standards.
	Well, I don't have time to go into the technical details of this equal pay standard, but I can tell you what the standard can do.
	When companies have fulfilled the requirements of the standard, they can ask for certification that the company pays equal weights to its male and female employees.
	And when a company receives this certification, they can advertise it to their customers.
	Just like companies and products can be certified green or certified fair pay, now they can be certified as being equal pay.
	Iceland is on the right track with the equal pay standard.
	Will it eliminate the gender pay gap?
	It will take time as the standard is voluntary.
	But it is a positive tool and I have full confidence that it will make a difference.
	Iceland can be a role model for other countries and in the near future the equal pay standard will be translated into other languages and others can use this tool in the fight to eliminate the gender pay gap.
	In 2014, Iceland's equal pay standard was voluntary, but in 2018 it was made mandatory.
	In 2017 the equal pay standard was mandated for companies and institutions with 25 employees or more with amendments to the Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women Men.
	This came into effect on the 1st of January 2018 and will require companies to prove that they are paying their male and female employees the same wages for the same job.
	But before we get into the details of the legislation or the philosophy behind it, let's have a look at the gender wage gap between men and women in Iceland and see if we can't work out why there might be a difference in the aggregate and median incomes of men and women in that country.
	All of the following statistics come from Statistics Iceland, which is the centre of official statistics for the country and works on the collection of data, processing and publication of statistical information on Iceland's economy and social issues.
	I've had to run this article through Google Translate from Icelandic to English and some of the words are wrong but I know why they're wrong and I'll explain as I go.
	They say that the adjusted gender pay gap was 16.1% in 2016 and 17% the year before.
	The wage gap is 16% in the private sector and only 8% in the public sector.
	The difference between the percentage of average hours of men and women are interpreted as unjustified wage differentials.
	Time acquisition includes basic salary, fixed payroll and bonus payments plus overtime.
	It's important to note that they are talking about the average hours of men compared to women and this as they say is interpreted as the unjustified wage differential which includes bonus payments and overtime and why this is important will become apparent shortly.
	While the automatic translation calls this the unchanged gender pay gap it is actually the adjusted gender pay gap.
	The unadjusted gender pay gap for 2016 was 22%.
	The explanation provided for this gap is as follows.
	Working hours partly explain the overall higher wages for men than women for full-time employment.
	Full-time men worked as a rule more than full-time women and were paid more on average because of it.
	There was a smaller difference in basic salary of full-time employees by gender of about 12%.
	Of course, the type of job worked also makes a difference.
	They say it should be borne in mind that occupational jobs are very different and the Icelandic labour market is gender sensitive.
	Thus it was common for women in specialist work to be elementary school teachers but men were experts in business sectors.
	The calculations are based on fixed regular payments as well as overtime in October each year.
	Irregular payments in October are excluded.
	And I think that this is the most important part.
	No account is taken of explanatory factors that may affect individuals' wages, such as employment, education, age and working age.
	The composition of working hours affects the time acquisition.
	As overtime hours are usually more expensive than every hour of day work, the percentage of wages is affected by the higher amount of overtime.
	The data is based on a survey done by Statistics Iceland, which covers more than 70,000 employees, and the survey covers 80% of the Icelandic labour market.
	The basic wages are paid monthly wages for day work without any additional payments.
	Regular wages are paid a monthly wage for the agreed working hours, whether in the case of the daytime work of the shift work, as well as any kind of stress, bonus and expense paid throughout each payment period.
	The total wage is all wages of an individual, with the exception of benefits and travel expenses.
	You can already see how a demographic who perhaps work harder or demonstrate more merit in their job might well end up with a higher average pay than a demographic who don't.
	This gives us figures for the gender pay gap in Iceland at around somewhere between 20% and 14% between 2008 and 2015.
	And as you can see, the gender pay gap is lower for full-time workers.
	If we look at the breakdown of the 2016 labour market, we can see that there were 12,300 more men than women employed in the labour force, making men 53% of the labour force to women's 47%.
	Men's economic activity rate is also 7% higher than women's, and men have a higher percent of employment.
	20% more men than women are being employed full-time in Iceland, and 20% more women than men are employed part-time.
	This leaves us with an average working hours per week of 36 hours for women and 44 hours for men, and for full-time workers, the average working hours per week becomes 42 for women and 47 for men.
	This is an 11% difference.
	Looking at the statistics for occupations in Iceland in 2016, we find that women make up the majority of clerks at 80% and make up the lion's share of service and sales workers and professionals.
	Men make up the majority of plant machine operators, craft and related trades workers, agricultural and fishery workers, and senior officials and managers.
	Looking at the breakdown of regular monthly salaries of full-time employees from 2015 gives us a relatively clear impression of why the statistics are as they are.
	Women make up the majority of clerks and clerks are actually a relatively high earning profession in Iceland.
	However, this is disproportionately offset by men's participation as managers, which is the highest earning occupation in the country.
	Unfortunately, I couldn't find any data that was more granular than this, so I was unable to drill down further into the information at hand.
	And so I think we can make some general statements that are true.
	In Iceland, there are more men working more hours in full-time work with a disproportionate percentage of men in the highest paying roles.
	And in addition to this, we are unable to account for justified individual pay that is higher than normal because of personal accomplishments.
	I think that this gives us quite a satisfactory reason why there is a gender pay gap in Iceland and also why the gender pay gap in Iceland is justified.
	And before we go on to more of the material from the Icelandic government and their centre of statistics and their various statements and articles on the subject, not once do they accuse anyone in any of these businesses in any particular role in any occupation, in any of the hiring processes or anything of the sort of being institutionally sexist.
	There is no reference at all to anything such as patriarchy or any kind of sexism in the hiring processes or anything of the sort.
	If anything, it seems that the Icelandic government has accepted that the difference in average pay between men and women is a result of the different life choices and actions of men and women in Iceland, which means that there can be no systemic solution to the gender pay gap in Iceland.
	The solution must come from individuals living their lives and making the choices that they are making.
	To close the gender pay gap in Iceland, I believe that women would have to act like men or the men would have to act like women.
	The only systemic solution I can conceive of to the occurrence of a gender pay gap in Iceland would have to be an injustice against men.
	In response to the government passing the equal pay standard, the Icelandic Women's Rights Association published this article.
	In it, they explained that the first legislation mandating equal pay for men and women in Iceland happened over half a century ago in 1961.
	It was hoped that full pay equality would be reached in only six years, by 1967, but full economic gender equality was not reached in six years, so Iceland passed a new comprehensive equality act in 1976, with one of the articles stating that men and women must be paid the same for work of equal value.
	The Icelandic Parliament passed yet another updated Equality Act in 2008 with the same provision.
	But still, men are being paid more than women, despite legislation which was supposed to guarantee equal wages.
	Given what we know about the Icelandic economy and the individual choices of men and women within it, it seems baffling that anyone would suspect that there could be any law that would end up with the net result of men and women on average earning the same amount of money.
	There is simply no mechanism for it within Iceland's diverse economy and the fact that women tend to trend towards certain kinds of jobs and away from other kinds of jobs, in addition to working fewer hours throughout their working lifetime.
	The idea that this could produce a parity between men and women's professional and economic lives is baffling.
	It's just not a conclusion that one can logically draw from the information we have at hand.
	The only way that men and women in Iceland could end up earning wage parity is if all the jobs paid the same and everyone was required to work the same number of hours.
	Otherwise, there will be a gender pay gap of some kind as the result of free people making free choices within a market system.
	With this in mind, it makes the equal pay standard look more like a witch hunt because the system in which it is being proposed simply cannot support the desired outcome.
	Using the force of law to make companies prove that they are paying men and women equally by obtaining an equal pay certification, even if this is done, and we ignore the fact that there may well be individual initiative and merit and accomplishment that is being overlooked in the desire for men and women to be paid equally,
	which we shall address shortly, even if every company in Iceland complies with this standard and pays men and women precisely the same per hour worked, men will still earn more money.
	The equal pay standard not only is not a solution to the problem of the gender wage gap, it cannot be a solution to this problem.
	Of course, the Icelandic Women's Rights Association is aware of this, and they say that one of the main reasons women work fewer hours in Iceland than men is that women are performing unpaid labour in the home and for the family.
	We at the Icelandic Women's Rights Association believe that we need to look at the larger adjusted figure to measure the gender pay gap, not the lower figure adjusted for working hours.
	Well, let's assume that they do that.
	What will it change?
	The answer is of course, nothing.
	While women decide to work fewer hours in the office and spend more of their time tending to their homes and families, men will out-earn them.
	And so the only way to fix this would be to legislate against people's domestic lives.
	The government would have to make it mandatory that domestic work is split evenly between parents.
	There is simply no other solution.
	And this would not address the issue of the 15% of adults in Iceland who are part of a single parent household.
	With the implementation of the Equal Pay Standard into law, the Icelandic Women's Rights Association republished the article with a few extra additions.
	The legislation which is now in effect in Iceland requires companies to prove that they are paying men and women equally by obtaining an equal pay certification using the equal pay standard.
	The current coalition government has affirmed its commitment to the equal pay certification, stating in its agreement, deliberate steps will be taken to eradicate gender-based wage discrimination.
	For this purpose, it will be necessary, among other things, to publicise the gender pay gap more prominently, e.g., in companies' annual financial statements.
	It must be ensured that comparable jobs are evaluated in a comparable manner, in accordance with the demands that are made of the enterprises according to law that are supposed to be reflected in the new equal pay standard.
	When companies and institutions have fulfilled the requirements of the standard, they receive certification.
	The equal pay standard was introduced in 2012, and several companies had already undergone voluntary certification using it.
	Of course, now, many more companies will implement the standard since it's mandatory.
	Presumably, we can just say that all of them will.
	Making certification based on the equal pay standard is a logical next step in our efforts in Iceland to combat gender inequality and the gender pay gap.
	The equal pay standard was written to conform to international standards and accepted practices in ISO standards, and our hope is that it can be translated and implemented in many more countries around the world.
	Today, the average wages of women in Iceland are only 72.5% of the average wages of men.
	Therefore, women have earned their wages after only 5 hours and 48 minutes in an average workday of 8 hours.
	That's simply not true.
	This means that if the workday begins at 9am and finishes at 5pm, women stop being paid for their work at 2:48pm.
	No, it really doesn't.
	We have gained only 40 minutes in 12 years.
	If progress continues at the same pace, we will need to wait another 35 years before women in Iceland have the same wages on average as men in the year 2052.
	I made the flippant comment on Facebook the other day that feminism was basically gender communism, and after reading this, it's really difficult to continue taking it as a joke.
	If they want men and women to be paid precisely the same, the best way to do it would be through a communist system, where women and men are forced to work and are forced to endure the same pay because the pay is not dependent on their performance or the performance of their company in the market, but instead is a planned economy where the amount that is paid to someone is not earned but instead handed down by the state.
	The equal pay standard was reported on by the New York Times, and they were the source of an interesting report.
	In 2013, Jodfrida Hanna Sigfodoty, a payroll clerk at a municipality office in Kopavoga in southwestern Iceland, filed a complaint to the government's complaints committee on equal rights arguing that a male counterpart was a pay grade higher.
	After the committee ruled in her favour, the municipality lowered the man's wages to her level.
	I went home crying, she said in an interview.
	I would have never gone forward with the case, knowing it would only lead to my colleague receiving less.
	I tried to find the original source of this report, but I couldn't find any other information about this.
	So I have absolutely no idea why her male counterpart was a pay grade higher.
	It may well have been that he did his job for 30 years and she had been hired the previous day.
	It may have been that he performed some particular act of service to the municipality.
	I don't know why he was a pay grade higher, but given her reaction, it seems that she feels it's moderately unjust that he is penalised because of her jealousy.
	A professor of gender studies at the University of Iceland said the equal pay law was useful but no magic wand.
	A law implementing a standardized job evaluation is not a solid fix to a problem this ambiguous.
	The deeply rooted stereotypes that favour men and women for certain jobs and professions are the fundamental problem.
	Because ultimately, feminists are looking to fully deconstruct anything that resembles a gender role.
	And that includes the different job preferences demonstrated by both men and women.
	This is not something that is going to go away.
	It is not something you are going to be able to change, and stereotypes are not the reason for it.
	It's interesting how the freer the society and the freer the economy, the wider the gender pay gap gets, the more gender segregated certain professions become.
	It's almost like men and women have innate natural preferences and allowing them to be free allows them to pursue the goals that they want to pursue.
	And finally, the left-wing press could not help but publish fake news about the equal pay standard.
	For example, Elle magazine, Iceland just made it illegal to pay men more than women.
	That's not true.
	Iceland makes it illegal for companies to pay men more than women, says the Huffington Post.
	Get paid ladies.
	Again, that's not true, and that's making it sound like women are entitled to money they didn't earn, which they aren't.
	And then from The Guardian, once more, Iceland has shown it is the best place in the world to be female.
	My country has just taken a huge step forward in legally enforcing equal pay for men and women.
	When will the UK dare to follow suit?
	Well, personally, I don't think the UK should follow suit.
	This is not going to enforce equal pay for men and women.
	This is a fool's errand.
	At no point are they accusing the system or the people within it of being sexist and discriminatory towards women.
	What they are actually accusing the system of is being flexible and catering towards women.
	And when women engage with a system that caters to their desires, they end up choosing different life paths to men.
	And this is reflected in a natural and justified, uneven distribution of earnings.
	And so they will find themselves becoming ever more draconian as they use the bureaucratic tools and power of the state in order to chase the dragon of equal pay, despite the fact that there is no mechanism within the system within which they operate to actually attain their goal.

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