The job evaluation system in Dutch healthcare discriminates against female employees. This finding, published in May 1998 by the Committee for Equal Treatment was the final ruling in a lawsuit filed in 1993 by a nurses' trade union. The union is now demanding that nursing staff be reclassified in a higher wage category.
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The job evaluation system in Dutch healthcare discriminates against female employees. This finding, published in May 1998 by the Committee for Equal Treatment was the final ruling in a lawsuit filed in 1993 by a nurses' trade union. The union is now demanding that nursing staff be reclassified in a higher wage category.
In May 1998, the Committee for Equal Treatment (Commissie Gelijke Behandeling, CGB) has determined that the job evaluation system in healthcare systematically discriminates against female employees. The Committee issued its decision five years after a union for nurses, Nieuwe Unie'91 (NU'91), took legal action to establish whether the job evaluation system was responsible for the - commonly acknowledged - lower pay levels for women. In the nursing sector, NU'91 operates alongside AbvaKabo, the public sector workers' union affiliated to the Dutch Trade Union Federation (Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, FNV). In this remarkable case, the Committee scrutinised the entire job evaluation system for signs of gender discrimination. When it was finished, the Committee concluded that, while a job evaluation system ought to have objective standards to determine payment levels, the present system did not appear to be "gender neutral" on several points.
The Committee's ruling reflects something that has been known for years: in the healthcare profession - a sector dominated largely by women - the operational care aspects are structurally underrated (see "Verzorgend werk en functiewaardering" [Caring work and job evaluations], V Van den Herik, in "Waardering van werk. Opstellen over functiewaardering en sekse" [Evaluating work: reflections on job evaluations and gender], M Brouns, L Halsema and J de Bruijn (eds), VU Uitgeverij, Amsterdam (1996)). However, the Committee's research has also shown that care aspects are listed and rated for operative jobs predominantly held by men (so-called "men's jobs"). On the other hand, this rarely happens for operative jobs usually performed by women.
In its research, the Committee compared over 100 job tasks - such as oral proficiency and relevant factual knowledge - for 42 "women's jobs" and 46 "men's jobs". Women were found to be over-represented in nursing positions, while men mainly held jobs such as transport workers and stretcher-bearers. The general conclusion was that the system overvalues aspects in which males score highly, and assigns less weight to aspects in which females excel. As a result, men receive higher salaries than women do. Organisation and management responsibilities score systematically higher than direct care aspects. But the research also shows that the "contact" factor is described extensively for stretcher-bearers, but hardly mentioned in the job description for nurses. The job evaluation system, developed in 1980, was at that time approved by the social partners.
Acting on the Committee's decision, NU'91 is now demanding that nursing staff should be placed on a higher salary scale, and does not exclude the possibility of taking legal action to compensate for the loss of pay over the last 18 years. However, the organisation of healthcare employers, Nederlandse Zorgfederatie (NZf), states that with a new job evaluation system nearing completion, the findings of the Committee are already outdated. The "care provision" factor has recently been added to the job evaluation criteria. In the NZF's opinion, not all, but nearly a quarter of the nursing staff should be reclassified on a higher salary scale.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (1998), Gender bias found in healthcare job evaluations, article.
