Isaac Otchere,
Two decades of wage transparency: taking stock of the outcomes of Ontario’s Salary Disclosure Act

Two decades of wage transparency: taking stock of the outcomes of Ontario’s Salary Disclosure Act

Principal Investigator: Isaac Otchere, Finance
Funder: SSHRC Insight

In 1996, the Ontario provincial government introduced the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, which led to a regime of mandatory public disclosure of compensation information. To make Ontario’s public sector more open and accountable to taxpayers, the Act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Ontario Government to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees who were paid $100,000 or more in the previous calendar year. According to Ibbitson, a biographer of the Harris government that introduced what has become known as the Sunshine List, the yearly release was aimed at stirring outrage among the public over public servants’ compensation. This public discontent, together with greater transparency and comparability of salary information across entities, was expected to translate into pressure for moderation. Dr. Otchere and Dr. Duxbury’s research investigates a series of interesting second-order changes that can be linked to the Act, including the extent to which employees perceive that their privacy have been violated and the impact on salary disparity on employee morale, productivity and organizational and interpersonal relations. This program of study will provide empirical evidence on these issues, which can ultimately benefit the Ontario government as well as other provinces that have either recently implemented or are contemplating implementing similar policies.