Invalid weighting in gender-neutral job evaluation tools

• In this paper we argue that invalid weighting instructions are recommended in three international gender-neutral job evaluation tools, which are used for correcting for possible gender-biased wage setting at work places. One of the tools is recommended by ILO.In these tools the evaluation and the ranking of the jobs at a workplace will be based on an overall assessment of various job-related requirements as skills, responsibility, effort and working condition. The overall assessment will be represented by weighted sum of scales. An essential assumption made in these tools is that the weights assigned to the scales can represent the relative importance of the job-related requirements.However, we claim that the weights cannot in a meaningful way say anything about the relative importance of these job-related requirements. We support our claim by a formal reconstruction of a job evaluation tool based on so called Multi-Criteria Decision Making. The implication of the reconstruction is that the weights will play a key role in the basic pay setting of the jobs.We further argue that, due to this mistaken interpretation of the weights in the instructions, the user of these tools will likely not realize the close link between the weighting of the job-related requirements and the basic pay setting of the jobs. We therefore conclude that an application of these invalid weighting instruction might hamper the purpose of gender-neutral job evaluation of achieving a rational and genderneutral pay setting at workplaces.The paper ends with a recommendation that valid weighting instructions should be developed by means of Multi-Criteria Decision Making.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

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