The Minimum Wage As a Tool to Combat Discrimination and Promote Equality

By Janine Rodgers and Jill Rubery

The minimum wage can improve the position of disadvantaged groups by reducing the incidence of low pay and promoting wage equality.

Some relevant contentious questions of policy are summarised here: issues concerning coverage (which sectors included/excluded, the preponderance of the low-paid in sectors where workers are poorly represented and organised, the relevance of a minimum wage in the informal sector); the controversy surrounding the impact of the minimum wage on employment, notably whether it has greater impact on the composition than on the level of employment; and casual factors in the male/female wage gap.

(International Labour Review. Vol. 142, no. 4, 2003/4; 543-56)