Implementing Equal Pay Policy: Clash Between Gender Equality and Corporatism

Abstract

More often than not gender equality policies are good on paper but fall foul of politicized implementation processes. The reasons behind this are becoming a key area of investigation for feminist scholarship on the implementation of gender policies. This article analyzes the barriers to implementing gender equality policies in a corporatist regime. Focusing on the 2007 nurses' industrial action in Finland, the article considers the case of "Nancy the Nurse,"which aimed at negotiating higher wages for nurses. Our findings suggest that the corporatist regime effectively prevented the implementation of gender equality policy, thus upholding the status quo and maintaining current wage relativities.