Iceland Prime Minister Joins Women On Strike Over Equal Pay

Iceland's Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdittir on Tuesday joined tens of thousands of women across the country to protest the gender pay gap and gender-based violence. The protest has been named "kvennafri", or women's day off, the BBC said in a report. This is the first full-day women's planned walkout since 1975, the outlet further said. Women are raising concerns for a majority of their colleagues, especially in education and healthcare sectors. As part of the protest, women and non-binary people have been urged to refuse paid and unpaid work.

#WomenForPeace pic.twitter.com/LnroFxJDHh

— Katrín Jakobsdóttir (@katrinjak) October 22, 2023

"I will not work this day, as I expect all the women in cabinet will do as well," Ms Jakobsdittir told the mbl.is website ahead of the protest.

The Prime Minister said her government is looking into how female-dominated professions are valued, in comparison to fields traditionally dominated by men.

"As you know, we have not yet reached our goals of full gender equality and we are still tackling the gender-based wage gap, which is unacceptable in 2023. We are still tackling gender-based violence, which has been a priority for my government to tackle," Ms Jakobsdottir said.

Her government had committed to eradicating the gender pay gap by 2022.

The protest has been backed by Iceland's largest federation of public workers unions, the Federation of the Public Workers Union in Iceland (BSRB), the Icelandic Nurses' Association and the Icelandic Association of Women's Associations, along with other worker bodies, said a CNN report.

According to Icelandic Teachers' Union, women are in majority at every level of the educational system, including 94 per cent of kindergarten teachers.

It also said that nearly 80 per cent of workers at the National University Hospital of Iceland, the biggest in the country, are women.

Iceland has been ranked the best country for gender equality by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for 14 years in a row. However, the WEF score is 91.2 per cent.

The first such strike took place in 1975m which led Iceland's parliament to pass an equal pay law.