Gender equality in the civil service, spotlight on the Swiss model

In May 2018, the Swiss Confederation received the United Nations Public Service Award in category 3 “Promoting gender responsive public services to achieve the SDGs”.

The award represents an international accolade for the work carried out by the federal and cantonal governments in recent years.

Gender equality is enshrined in the Swiss Constitution (Art. 8) and an act promulgated in 1995 goes so far as to outlaw any direct or indirect gender-based discrimination.

The Federal Office for Gender Equality (FOGE), which reports to the Federal Council, is tasked with drawing up and monitoring this public policy, through which the government has chosen to make its civil service exemplary.

The FOGE has designed and rolled out a number of instruments to both incentivise and help all public sector employers to ensure strict enforcement of the legislation:

· A “Charter for equal pay in the public sector” in September 2016, which has now been signed by the confederation, 14 cantons and 47 municipalities.

· The “Logib” self-test tool, which allows entities with more than 50 employees to rapidly and reliably find out whether they have an equal pay policy for men and women. It is also available to the private sector and the tool has been downloaded 4,900 times to date.

The FOGE also monitors measures introduced by cantons and cities with over 10,000 inhabitants. It highlights the measures planned or already implemented and provides yearly data on equal pay.

In the canton of Jura, for instance, the difference in wages between men and women is 0.5%. This situation is closely correlated with the reassessment of responsibilities. Professions that count more than 50% of women have been accorded more value by the improved recognition of psychosocial skillsets. New scales are eliminating the major pay gaps that have existed for many decades.

In Switzerland, where the status of federal civil servant was phased out in November 2000 (it only still exists in the two French-speaking cantons of Geneva and Vaud), bonuses have increased and these also need to be “monitored”.