Change and Stagnancy: The promise of company level pay transparency policies within a collective wage formation system

For the first time in five years, the difference between women and men in terms of average monthly wages in Norway increased. The increasing wage gap is primarily due to the fact that more women were employed in the health sector because of the pandemic with the consequence that the number of women with relative low pay increased. A total of 43% believe that closing the pay gap between the sexes is important but should not be one of Norway’s most important priorities right now, while 42% believe that the issue should be one of the highest priorities. At the same time, a clear majority believes that those who work in traditionally female occupations such as nurses or other care workers are poorly paid for the work they do. We ask: how can we explain that in a context with very progressive state policy and social partner involvement in gender equality policies, we see slow progress towards the reversal of the gender pay gap? We focus systematically on the post-adoption and impact of 1) the newly established Activity and Reporting Duty (ARP) as well as the role of the social partners in the collective wage setting process.