Men are Always Better? How Swedish Municipalities Justify Pay Differences in Gender Pay Audit Reports

Abstract

This study analyses how pay inequality among Swedish municipal employers is justified in their mandatory pay audit reports. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine the overarching message that there are no unjust salary differences between women and men, since the differences found have justifiable explanations. Normative critique for reproducing gender salary gaps can be addressed to the reports, since salary differences between individual men and women doing similar work were justified by reference to men’s experience or special tasks and the organizational policy of individual salaries. Salary differences between groups of men and women were explained by men’s experience and their special and demanding tasks. Market explanations for salary differences were frequently used as a justification of men’s higher salaries. The normative critique can be supplemented by an explanatory critique, as overarching societal discourses, such as employers being held responsible for gender pay gaps in the labour market and technical areas having more value than care areas were identified in the texts. We argue that through pay audit reports inequality regimes in regard to pay are discursively reproduced.