Women in Iceland

Women in Iceland
A procession in Bankastræti in Reykjavík on July 7th 1915 to celebrate women's suffrage.
General Statistics
Maternal mortality (per 100,000)27[1]
Women in parliament38%[2]
Women over 25 with secondary education99% [M: 99%]
Women in labour force79% [M: 86%][2]
Gender Inequality Index[3]
Value0.043 (2021)
Rank8th out of 191
Global Gender Gap Index[4]
Value0.908 (2022)
Rank1st out of 146
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Women in Iceland generally enjoy good gender equality. As of 2018, 88% of working-age women were employed, 65% of students attending university were female, and 41% of members of parliament were women. Nevertheless, women still earn about 14% less than men,[5] though these statistics do not take into account the hours worked, over-time, and choices of employment.[6] Iceland has the world's highest proportion of women in the labour market and significant child care allocations for working women.[7] It has gender neutral parental leave, with a quota for each parent, and a transferable part.[8]

Iceland is arguably one of the world's most feminist countries, having been awarded this status in 2011 for the second year in a row.[9] Iceland was the first country to have a female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, elected in 1980.[10] It also has the world's first female and openly gay head of government, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, who was elected prime minister in 2009.[11]

Iceland enjoys the smallest overall gender gap, according to the World Economic Forum ranking Global Gender Gap Report, a position it has held since 2009. In 2020 Iceland had a 12.2% gap, as measured across four categories: health, education, economic participation and opportunity, and political advancement. The pay gap between women and men is decreasing at a rate which would lead to parity in 2068.[12] Women earn about 72% of men's salaries on average, and are still subject to domestic and sexual violence.[7] Women in Iceland do not necessarily fare better than other countries in professional fields: for example Iceland's percentage of female medical doctors is one of the lowest within the OECD (only Japan, Korea, Luxembourg and the US have less female doctors).[13]

  1. ^ Birgisdottir, Hera; Bjarnadottir, Ragnheidur I.; Kristjansdottir, Katrin; Geirsson, Reynir T. (2016). "Maternal deaths in Iceland over 25 years". Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. 95 (1): 74–78. doi:10.1111/aogs.12797. PMID 26459287. S2CID 1427445.
  2. ^ a b "Statistics Iceland: Educational attainment of women and men differs by region". Statistics Iceland. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  3. ^ "Human Development Report 2021/2022" (PDF). HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORTS. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  4. ^ "Global Gender Gap Report 2023" (PDF). World Economic Forum. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
  5. ^ "Iceland: Top for equality but still 'needs to do more'". BBC News. 2016-12-07. Retrieved 2024-04-09.
  6. ^ "Are women paid less than men for the same work?". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2024-04-09.
  7. ^ a b "The Iceland women's strike, 1975". libcom.org. Retrieved 2016-12-09.
  8. ^ "Iceland".
  9. ^ "Economies". Global Gender Gap Report 2015.
  10. ^ Disill. "Vigdís Finnbogadóttir". english.forseti.is. Archived from the original on 2015-02-04. Retrieved 2016-12-09.
  11. ^ "Johanna Sigurdardottir | prime minister of Iceland". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Data - OECD".