The Missing Comparison: Valuing Work of Equal Worth
Pay transparency can show that women and men occupy different positions in a pay distribution, but it cannot decide whether two different jobs are being valued fairly. This chapter examines job evaluation and job classification as the comparison layer beneath pay reporting, so the reader can see how criteria, weights and governance may either expose or reproduce the undervaluation of women-dominated work.
The issue becomes unavoidable in a labour market divided by occupation and sector. If women and men usually hold the same jobs, comparing pay within a job may capture much of the problem. If they are sorted into different roles, a system that compares only identical titles can report equal treatment while never asking whether different work makes comparable demands.
From equal work to work of equal value
Equal pay for equal work is the more familiar principle. It asks whether people doing identical or nearly identical jobs receive different pay because of sex. The comparison is relatively direct: define the job, identify the workers and compare their compensation.
Equal pay for work of equal value is broader. It recognises that two jobs can differ in tasks while demanding comparable levels of skill, effort, responsibility and difficult working conditions. The question is not whether the work looks the same, but whether the demands placed on the worker are comparable and should be reflected in the pay structure. This matters where women and men are concentrated in different occupations and where the work associated with women has historically been valued less.
Consider the contrast between truck driving and nursing assistance described in the OECD report. The jobs are not interchangeable, and the example does not establish that they must receive identical pay. It illustrates a comparison problem: both may involve shortages, risk and substantial physical demands, yet care work also requires interpersonal, organisational and emotional capacities that traditional systems may treat as less economically significant. If an evaluation counts lifting, machinery or physical exposure in detail but describes empathy, conflict resolution or responsibility for people as incidental personal qualities, its output can be systematically biased while appearing neutral.
A firm-level pay gap cannot resolve that question by itself. It can show that women’s and men’s pay differs, but it may not tell us whether a female-dominated job is comparable in value to a male-dominated job, whether both jobs are placed in the same pay grade, or whether a classification system has inherited a hierarchy from past bargaining. Job evaluation supplies the analytical process for comparing job demands. Job classification translates the result into groups, grades or levels that connect to pay and career structures.
The distinction between the two processes is important. An evaluation may conclude that two jobs have comparable value, but a classification system can still assign them to different grades. A classification may contain detailed titles and levels, but those levels may reflect historical status rather than a careful assessment of work. Equal-value pay equity requires both the comparison and a pay structure that respects its result.