Iceland is considered “the world’s most feminist country”.
With an openly lesbian former prime minister, a large female labor force and nearly equal
representation in parliament, what is life really like for women in Iceland?
Well, firstly, women make up nearly an equal amount of the labor force as men,, and in
fact, Iceland has ranked first on the Global Gender Gap index since 2009.
The country scores highly in areas such as political empowerment and educational attainment
for women.
The United States ranks 45th.
In 2016, The Economist named Iceland the best place for working women.
A 2008 law defined for the first time both gender-based violence and discrimination against
women in the workplace while enforcing equal job opportunity for all, regardless of gender.
In 2010, Iceland passed a bill establishing a quota for women on company boards, ensuring
that each sex represent at least 40 percent.
Nonetheless, Iceland has yet to close the gap on earned income and wages for similar
work, where women make between 14 and 18 percent less overall.
Some estimate this gap could take 52 years to close at the current rate.
Much of this progress was prompted by a women’s strike in 1975.
On October 24th, 25,000 women in Iceland gathered in the capital to protest wage inequality.
The strike was later titled the Women’s Day Off movement and was celebrated for the
second time 30 years later, on October 24th 2005.
This was against repeated in October 2016, in protest of the same cause.
The number of women in politics has grown immensely in the past few decades.
In 1980, Iceland saw the world’s first democratically elected woman president.
At the time of her election, only 5 percent of MP’s were women.
But by 1999, their share in parliament rose to more than one-third.
Today, women represent nearly half – or 48 percent – of Iceland’s Parliament,
compared to the US’s 19 percent, making it the most equal Parliamentary system -- without
a quota -- in the world.
In 2009, Iceland elected its first female prime minister and the world’s first openly
gay prime minister.
Perhaps a heavy female contingent in politics had a hand in pushing Iceland’s landmark
parental leave legislation in 2000, helping women return to work more quickly after childbirth.
Every parent receives up to three months of leave and share an additional three months,
and as many as 90% of fathers take their paternal leave, enabling women to return to their regular
working hours.
Research has shown that fathers continue to share parental responsibilities with housework
and childcare long after the leave is over.
In Iceland, more women than men attend university and graduate school.
Nearly 34 percent of women attain higher education degrees, more than the EU average of about
26 percent.
And in fact, between 2002 and 2012, the number of Icelandic women receiving higher degrees
increased more than the number of men.
It’s often said that Iceland is the best place to be a woman -- in 2010 Iceland banned
strip clubs with a unanimous vote, making it an offense for any company to profit from
the nudity of its employees.
With female leadership advocating for women’s rights, political strength to tackle problems,
and a vocal women’s movement, it seems the country’s gender equality issues aren’t
soon to be ignored.
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Women make up half the Icelandic population, but the country’s culture and practices
encompass its entire population, so what exactly is life like for all Icelanders?
Find out in this video.
About two thirds of its people live in or around the capital of Reykjavik, which ranks
as one of the safest, cleanest, and most eco-friendly cities in the world.
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