‘You call this equality?’: A closer look at Iceland’s gender pay gap strike

Iceland is often touted for its gender equality, topping the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index for 14 years, but women across the country are set to strike this week in a protest against employment inequality and the gender pay gap.

The planned action is expected to take place Tuesday and will see those from both paid and unpaid jobs take to a picket line, with Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdóttir telling media she too plans to participate and wants her office to do the same.

It’s the first time in more than 50 years the country has seen such a move, with women and non-binary individuals going on their first full-day strike in 48 years. A similar strike in 1975 saw 90 per cent of the country’s women stop working to protest the inequality women face in the office, including pay — a frequently raised issue not only in Iceland but across the globe.

“While significant strides have been made since the pivotal Women’s strike in 1975 … the core demand for valuing women’s work remains unmet,” said Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, communications director for the BSRB, the Icelandic Federation for Public Workers, in a statement to Global News on Monday. The BSRB is one of the organizers of the strike.

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“The strike, under the slogan, ‘You call this equality?’ seeks to bring attention to persisting gender disparities and the urgent need for action,” she said.

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Global News reached out to Iceland’s prime minister’s office about the planned strike but did not hear back by publication.

In Canada, women workers earn about 11 per cent less per hour than men on average, according to Statistics Canada in 2021. Recent data from Statistics Iceland shows women earn at least 20 per cent less than Icelandic men in some industries and professions, such as childcare and caregiving.

Steingrímsdóttir also said the strike is to highlight the “pressing issue of gender-based and sexual violence.”

A University of Iceland study in 2018 found that 40 per cent of Icelandic women experience gender-based and sexual violence in their lifetime.

The strike on Tuesday, Steingrímsdóttir said, will aim to “showcase our strength and unity” and is a demand to implement measures to ensure women’s work is “properly valued.”

—with files from Reuters