Question

What are the differences between employment equity, pay equity and equal pay for equal work?

Answer 1

Employment equity, as defined in federal Canadian law by the Employment Equity Act, requires federal jurisdiction employers to engage in proactive employment practices to increase the representation of four designated groups: women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, and visible minorities. The act states that "employment equity means more than treating persons the same way but also requires special measures and the accommodation of differences.

Pay Equity is equal pay for work of equal value. The Pay Equity Act requires employers to pay female jobs at least the same as male jobs if they are of comparable value. Pay equity compares jobs usually done by women with different jobs usually done by men. Female jobs are mostly or traditionally done by women such as librarian, childcare worker or secretary. Male jobs are mostly or traditionally done by men, such as truck driver, firefighter, or shipping clerk.

Equal Pay for Equal Work addresses situations in which men and women do the same work. The Equal Pay provisions of the Employment Standards Act require that men and women receive equal pay when doing the same job or substantially the same job such as two cooks or two machine operators on the same line.

Pay equity compares the value and pay of different jobs, such as nurse and electrician. Only people (both men and women) in jobs done traditionally by women can complain that their work is undervalued.

Equal pay compares the pay of similar jobs. Either men or women can complain. If a male incumbent is paid less than a female incumbent in the same job, he can file a complaint. As well, a woman can complain if she is paid less than a man in the same job.

Pay equity is a strategy for creating job-classification schemes free of gender-bias. Employment equity is a strategy for eliminating systemic discrimination.

Unlike pay equity, which is directed at improving the wages of those employees who work in traditionally female roles, employment equity is concerned with redistribution of individual workers among jobs so pay equity attempts to “allieviate the wage gap in a sex-segregated labour force". while employment equity attempts to de-segregate the labour force.

Pay equity does not challenge the market determination of wages, it challenges the failure of the market to apply the same criteria to male-dominated an female-dominated jobs for this reason, some feminists have rejected pay equity because it fails to confront the market directly.