WOMEN’S QUOTA IN NORWAY A GOOD PIONEER FOR GERMANY?
Term Paper
Work, Business & Society
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
3
2. DEFINITION WOMEN’S/ GENDER QUOTA
3
3. GENDER QUOTA IN NORWAY
4
3.1 THE ROAD TO THE QUOTA
3.2 IMPACTS AND CHANGES
4
5
4. GENDER PAY GAP IN GERMANY
6
4.1 CAUSES FOR THE GENDER PAY GAP
4.2 GENDER QUOTA IN GERMANY
7
8
5.CONCLUSION
8
LIST OF LITERATURE
9
BOOKS/MAGAZINES
INTERNET SOURCES
ILLUSTRATIONS
9
9
10
2
Term Paper
Work, Business & Society
1. INTRODUCTION
The situation for women in every kind of different sectors has changed over the last centuries and decades. Nevertheless the result of an UNO- analysis in the mid 1990’s states that women have not the same chances as men in any society in the world even though that there has been made a huge progress.1
As Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the German Basic Law declares, “All persons shall be equal before the law.“ In addition Paragraph 2 of the same article states, “Men and women shall have equal rights. The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist.“ 2
In contrast to this Article of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) describes that after a study made in 2012 Germany has one of the biggest wage gap between men and women among all countries in Europe. The study says as well that there are fewer women in management positions.3 This arouses the question “What are the reasons especially in Germany for women earning less than men and why are more men working in management position than women?”
This term paper will concentrate on these problems in the world of work. The author has the focus especially on the debate about the women’s quota with regards to Norway and Germany.
This work will analyse why women earn less than men and what Germany can adopt from the experiences Norway has made so far with its women’s quota.
The paper will first give a rough definition about what is meant by the term “women’s quota”. -Then it will have a closer look on Norway concerning the changes the quota has entailed and the great debate that took place there. Furthermore the process of introducing the quota will be described. In the second part the term paper will deal with Germany’s gender pay gap and the problem of reverse discrimination that the gender quota entailed. The question why there is this huge wage gap will be answered and it will be analysed why Germany has not the women’s quota so far. In the end the term paper will examine what Germany can adopt from Norway’s experiences with the quota and if Norway is a good pioneer for Germany.
2. DEFINITION WOMEN’S/ GENDER QUOTA
Women’s quotas, also termed as gender quotas, are political sanctions that should remove the results of ancient societal problems as discrimination and disadvantages of women.4
1
cf. Boshammer/ Kayß (1999) p.6
2
cf. Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (2010) p.15
Furthermore it is a guideline/ requirement stating that there has to be a certain fringe percentage of women who are employed in enterprises or who are members of management boards. Thus gender quotas are supposed to realize the political objective of increasing the amount of women in leadership positions and in certain occupational groups.5
3. GENDER QUOTA IN NORWAY
In December 2003 Norway introduced an additional provision of the companies act that states that both genders have to be represented with at least 40 percent in the management. Since
January 2004 this law was only binding for state-owned as well as local
