Equal Pay and Comparable Worth: Conceptual and Functional Bearings to Closing Nigeria’s Gender Pay Gap

Abstract

Occupational segregation by sex and the systemic undervaluation of jobs held by women are historic forms of labor market discrimination which lie at the root of sustained inequality at work.  which in turn fuels the gender pay gap. Equal pay for equal work is the labour rights concept that individuals doing the same work should receive the same remuneration irrespective of individual or group characteristic such as gender which are unrelated to ability and performance. The doctrine of comparable worth is an attempt to alleviate the inequities caused by sex-segregated jobs and disparate pay scales for ‘female’ and ‘male’ dominated jobs. Adopting the doctrinal method, this work attempts to evaluate the functional relevance of Equal Pay and Comparable Worth Concepts to Nigerian labour law and practice. The work finds that although there is a severe paucity of equal pay legislation in Nigeria, the National Industrial Court is empowered by the Constitution to enforce international best practices in labour law. However, it is the historical perception of women as care-givers rather than a paucity of laws or a lack of education that most critically hinders women from attaining wage parity in the public and private employment sectors. It is recommended that Nigeria incorporates the ILO anti-discrimination Conventions into her labour laws whilst also pursuing socio-economic reforms across all stages of life to upturn the deep-seated biases and inequities against women in the world of work.

Keywords: comparable worth, equal pay, gender pay gap, women as care-givers, employment equity, Nigeria labour law.

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/100-04

Publication date:August 31^st 2020