Same job = same pay?

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that “medical adjudicators” (mainly women) do the same work as “medical advisors” (mainly men) at the Canada Pension Plan Disability Benefits Programme and should therefore get the same pay.

The pay gap between adjudicators and advisors was considerable with the advisors being paid about twice as much as adjudicators.  Advisors also had their annual licensing fee paid and had good access to educational opportunities, unlike the adjudicators. 

The core job function for both jobs is to determine eligibility for disability benefits and both advisors and adjudicators are hired for their medical knowledge.  The differences in pay and conditions arose because advisors were doctors and classified as “health professionals” and adjudicators were nurses and classified as  “programme administrators” . There were some tasks that the advisors performed such as providing expert advice on 2% of the files and providing testimony when decisions were appealed or judicially reviewed. However these were judged to be exceptions to what was essentially the same job.

The case was first raised by the 431 complainants 20 years ago.