Tekna has analysed salary data from 2012 to 2021 to understand whether women and men are paid differently.
The 2022 analysis found that:
- There are clear salary differences among Tekna members when comparing the average pay of women and men across different graduation years
- The gap is largest in the private sector, but it is also present among Tekna members in the government sector; in the municipal sector, women and men earn almost the same
- Women earn less than men already in their first job after finishing their degree
- Women fall behind in salary early in their careers – and the gap tends to grow over time
Why do men earn more?
An important aim of this work was to look more closely at the factors that influence pay in the Norwegian labour market. “Salary differences can partly be explained by observable differences between women and men,” says Senior Adviser Tom Erik Aabø at Tekna, who carried out the analysis.
For Tekna members, much of the difference comes from women and men choosing different fields of study and working in different types of jobs. These educational choices lead them into industries and employers with very different pay levels.
For example, men are more often engineers with a master’s degree, while women are more often educated in biology and chemistry—fields where salaries tend to be lower.
In addition, statistics show that men more often end up in specialist or leadership roles, which also come with higher pay.
For the first time, Tekna is publishing salary statistics broken down by gender.
An unexplained pay gap of 3 percent
But even when factors such as field of study, level of responsibility and the employer’s general pay level are taken into account, there is still an unexplained pay gap of almost 3 per cent among members working in the private sector, and nearly 2 per cent among members in the government sector.
In the municipal sector, there is no difference in pay between women and men once education and responsibility levels are adjusted for. A pay gap of 2–3 per cent may sound small, but over the course of a long career, it adds up to a substantial amount of money.
Aabø points out that one possible explanation for men’s steeper salary progression is that women are more often slowed down by parental leave and the responsibility of caring for young children.
“For people with a master’s degree, the beginning of their career often coincides with the life phase when many start a family,” he says.
“The steep salary curve for Tekna members means, for example, that weak salary adjustments for a few years early in a career can create a pay lag that continues for years to come. If periods of absence affect salary adjustments or career progression, this may hit women harder, as they often have longer periods of parental leave,” Aabø explains.
Other research on pay differences confirms that having children affects women’s earnings far more than men’s.
For example this study from the Institute for Social Research (in Norwegian).
Employers’ responsibility
Tekna’s analysis shows that the pay gap has remained fairly stable over time. More knowledge is needed about why salary differences arise, with particular attention to how pay is set during the years when many employees have small children.
It is important to prevent absence due to parental leave or caring responsibilities from affecting salary development. Ultimately, it is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that there are no unexplained pay differences between women and men in the workplace. The Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act is clear that employers have a duty to work actively to promote equality.
Read more about employers’ responsibility.
Tackling unfair pay differences in working life is an important priority for Tekna and for Tekna’s representatives. Tekna encourages everyone who is going on parental leave to plan the period before and after the leave carefully together with their employer, and to take the initiative for a salary conversation.
