Can pay transparency help reduce the gender pay gap? Insights into the limited and selective effects of French policy

When French President Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, he presented gender equality as the “great cause” of his mandate. Shortly after, anticipating the UE Transparency directive, a law on pay transparency was voted in 2018. This legislation is however the product of previous mobilizations. This chapter will show the influence of trade unions and State feminists since 2001 to push for legal regulation on equal pay bargaining, but also the discrete intervention of corporate lobbies and the Labour Ministry to design a “business-friendly” Gender Equality Index that fits with their neo-liberal agenda. Since 2019, private companies with more than 50 employees are therefore publicly ranked with a score out of 100 based on several criteria: average gender pay gap, yearly pay promotion and after maternity leave and gender gap in 10-top earnings. Drawing on parliamentary archives, key reports, observations as expert for the Equality body (2016-2022) and interviews with negotiators at company level in 2020 and 2021, this chapter intends to show that this transparency policy has limited and selective outcomes: a stable number of equality agreements and litigation cases, almost no sanction fees, and pay increases or promotions mainly beneficial to female managers in large companies. We argue that this transparency strategy falls short of addressing the gender pay gap. It has reinforced the employers’ framing on the individual and does not address the structural causes of wage inequalities. However, businesswomen’s networks have mobilized for its reinforcement and extension to public employers, as the index had made visible the lack of women in corporate governance. It was a key factor for the adoption of a new law in 2021 imposing women quotas in executive committees (30% within 2026 and 40% within 2031), confirming the increasingly elitist trend of the French equality legislation.