Policy When Implementation Stalls

Abstract

Policy When Implementation Stalls is a systematic cross-national study of equal pay policies from pre-adoption to adoption through to post adoption—implementation, evaluation, and outcomes. While previous research finds that since governments first put equal pay laws on the books in the 1970s policy and progress in the gender pay gap has stalled, it has not opened the black box of policy implementation. The comparative analysis of eleven post-industrial democracies is undertaken through the Gender Equality Policy in Practice (GEPP) approach and network to fill this gap. The rich, detailed analyses of equal pay policy implementation in Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, the UK, the USA, and Croatia provide a unique laboratory in which to examine central questions about stalled polices like equal pay. The story of stalled policy begins with a chapter on equal pay policy at the EU level. Part II of the book then covers the strong corporatist countries and Part III the countries with weaker corporatist systems. The concluding chapter conducts a cross-national analysis in terms of the study’s core questions to contribute to emerging comparative theories of gender equality policy and stalled policy. Ultimately the book shows that in these challenging times, when gender equality progress has been being put into question across the globe, the imperative of stalled implementation is being broken, in some countries in the study, suggesting a recipe for policy success and evidence-based recommendations to move gender pay equality forward in this policy area that has been so resistant to change.