On October 23, 2023, the State Secretary for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunities, and Diversity of Belgium, Marie-Colline Leroy, posted a message on X about the striking women in Iceland. In the tweet, she claims the following: “In Iceland, women are striking today, along with non-binary individuals and even the prime minister @katrinjak, because in the country often referred to as an equality paradise, there is still a gender pay gap. 40% of women there face sexual violence.” The claim turns out to be mostly true.
In the first part of Leroy’s tweet, she mentions the Prime Minister of Iceland and claims that despite being called an equality paradise, the country still has a gender pay gap. Leroy does not cite any sources in the tweet for the information she provides. So, it is interesting to investigate whether Iceland is truly leading in terms of gender equality. Furthermore, she states that 40% of women in Iceland are confronted with sexual violence. Again, no source is cited for this information in the tweet, so it is important to determine where these figures come from. However, under the original tweet, there is an article from the Belgian medium VRT, which ultimately leads to an article from The Guardian. It mentions that there is indeed a gender pay gap in Iceland, estimated to be at least 21%.
When examining gender equality in Iceland, Statistics Iceland reports the gender pay gap in various occupational fields. Research shows that women in the field of ‘Technicians and associate professionals’ earned approximately 21% less than men in 2022. This is also the largest percentage of wage disparity between men and women in Iceland (Statistics Iceland, 2023). In other fields, this difference is less significant. Therefore, the claim in The Guardian is largely true, but the percentage discussed in the claim applies to one specific field and is not representative of all fields in Iceland.
But where does the name ‘equality paradise’ come from? It is first mentioned in The Guardian article by Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, one of the organizers of the strike and communications director for BSRB, the Icelandic Federation of Public Workers. “We’re talked about, Iceland is talked about, like it’s an equality paradise. But an equality paradise should not have a 21% wage gap and 40% of women experiencing gender-based or sexual violence in their lifetime. That’s not what women around the world are striving for.” Having the global reputation that it does, Iceland has a responsibility to “make sure we live up to those expectations (Steingrímsdóttir, 2023).”
Steingrímsdóttir thus refers to the expectations that the rest of the world has for Iceland. How does the country meet these expectations? Iceland has been at the top of the WEF’s gender equality rankings for several years. The gender pay gap was closed by approximately 91.2% in Iceland in 2023, followed by Finland with around 87.9%. The Netherlands rank 27th globally in this regard (Global Gender Gap Report 2023, 2023).
Conclusion
It can certainly be said that Iceland has a reputation as the top-performing country globally, yet they still have a gender pay gap. Hence, various organizations continue to protest for improvement.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE: Lotte Katerberg, Gelske Leefers – Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands
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