Employers with 50 or more employees in Norway must report biannually on their progress toward achieving gender pay equity and gender equality. Smaller organizations — those that regularly employ between 20 and 50 employees — could decide to report voluntarily, and would have to do so if requested by employee representatives. The reporting requirement features in the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act (Norwegian), that took effect on 1 Jan 2020. Employers must publish their reports, but currently won’t face sanctions for non-compliance. Norway’s current gender pay gap is 13%; the average gender pay gap in the European Union is 16%.  

Highlights

• The report must include a pay analysis by the employer of the gender pay differences across all the organization’s roles and levels. The analysis must calculate the proportion of women and men employed in each job category; assess the pay of employees performing the same, and different types, of work; identify the gender pay gap in roles dominated by female employees, and in jobs predominantly staffed by men; and include all salary components, such as fixed salary, bonus and benefits.

• Employers must identify the risks that could prevent the organization from achieving gender pay equity and gender equality, take remedial measures to address these risks, and report on their impact.

• Employers must also include in their reports information on: progress made in improving gender equality across the organization; uptake by employees of their parental leave entitlement, and the duration of leave taken; and the status of part-time employment in the organization, including the organization’s use of involuntarily part-time work.

• The Norwegian Equality and Discrimination Ombudsman will publish guidelines and electronic forms with the aim of simplifying employers’ reporting duties. Further regulations could standardize the reporting format employers must follow.

  Employers must make the report available upon request to employees, representatives of employees, the Norwegian Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Equality and Discrimination Ombudsman, or to researchers for the purpose of investigating allegations of unlawful pay inequality. 

Related resources

• Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act (Norwegian) (Lovdata, 1 Jan 2018)