Decoupling gender equality from gender pay audits in Swedish municipalities

Abstract

This article investigates processes of gender pay audits in five municipalities in Sweden in order to understand the reasons why gender pay audits in general do not level out men’s and women’s salaries in the way they are intended to. The results show how gender pay audits became a bureaucratic process to fulfil a legal requirement, and how they were decoupled from core organizational practices and salary policies. This decoupling was furthered by the realization that the result of gender pay audits would imply a need for large structural changes in pay policies, for which there were no financial means. Consequently, decoupling was found to be a major reason why gender pay audits are ineffective in coming to terms with gender pay gaps.