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How Karnataka’s 7th Pay Commission ended a decades-old bias against women

The 7th Karnataka Pay Commission’s recommendation modifies the Aykroyd formula by granting equal 1-unit weightage to both adult male and female members, treating genders equitably.

When the 7th State Pay Commission in Karnataka was constituted in November 2022, we were tasked with a seemingly technical exercise: recommend a fair minimum pay for more than 5.7 lakh state government employees. What emerged was something far more significant: A small but transformative correction to a 70-year-old formula that had subtly embedded gender bias into the very foundation of public service compensation.

The determination of remuneration for government employees rests on the fundamental premise that pay for any post must attract individuals of requisite qualifications and calibre while motivating sincere performance without any unfair treatment. Pay structures must also uphold the universal principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value. 

These structures are shaped by multiple factors that evolve with changing organisational, socio-economic, and policy environments. In the public sector, employees serve multifaceted roles—social navigators, stewards of scarce resources, guardians of democratic principles and the rule of law, and agents of change—exerting wide-ranging influence on society and the environment. Consequently, Pay Commissions are responsible for recommending prudent, fair, and equitable compensation aligned with ground realities, merit, and justice.

The 7th State Pay Commission of Karnataka arrived at the minimum pay, the foundational building block of the entire pay structure. It highlighted a path-breaking innovation: the explicit incorporation of gender parity into the calculation methodology. 

While previous commissions in Karnataka, the central government, and other states relied on established norms, the 7th Karnataka Pay Commission identified a subtle yet systemic gender bias rooted in normative assumptions dating back seven decades. Through microscopic examination and a reforms-linked governance approach, it revised the criteria to achieve genuine equity and equitable distribution.

Systematically undervaluing women’s needs

Minimum pay represents the entry-level remuneration at the lowest cadre and is intended to meet the basic needs of an employee and their family for a dignified standard of living. No single universally accepted formula exists; instead, two principal approaches have guided Pay Commissions. 

First, the “constant relative income approach,” which ensures real minimum pay grows in tandem with real per capita income. The second, increasingly favoured in recent years, calculates the minimum expenditure required for dignified living. This latter method draws on the Aykroyd formula, named after nutritionist Wallace Ruddell Aykroyd and endorsed by the 1957 Indian Labour Conference, which assumed a normative family of four: a male employee, his wife, and two children below 14. 

It assigned consumption units as follows: husband = 1 unit, wife =........

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