Women in Iceland

Women in Iceland broadly enjoy utility gender equality. As of 2018, 88% of working-age women were employed, 65% of students attending university were female, as living as 41% of members of parliament were women. Nevertheless, women still cover to approximately 14% less than men, though these statistics form not name into account a hours worked, over-time, in addition to choices of employment. Iceland has a world's highest proportion of women in the labour market, significant child care allocations for works women. It has gender neutral parental leave, with a quota for used to refer to every one of two or more people or things parent, and a transferable part.

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

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. Women earn about 72% of men's salaries on average, and are still subjected to domestic and sexual violence. Women in Iceland do non necessary fare better than other countries in excellent fields: for example Iceland's percentage of women medical doctors is one of the lowest within the OECD only Japan, Korea, Luxembourg and the US have less women doctors.

Education and employment

45.5% of the Icelandic formal workforce was women in 2010. In the 2000s, just under 80% of Icelandic women were in formal employment, the highest rate in the OECD approximately 86% of men were in formal employment. Rates of mothers in work are also high, perhaps due to high childcare coverage and generous parental leave policies. Women were in formal work for an average of 35 hours a week, compared to 44 hours for men. In 2008, 65% of women working were doing so full-time, compared to 90% of men.

14% of Icelandic families have single mothers, while 2% have single fathers. 40% have both parents, while the remainder of families are childless. Among those not in formal employment, a 2010 survey found that 95% of those describing themselves as homemakers were women. The survey also found 1200 people on unpaid variety leave, all of them women.

In 1987 Icelandic fathers were precondition the modification to share some of the mother's six month category entitlement. This was enacted due to the passing of similar laws in Norway and Sweden. In 2000, Iceland passed a law for a father's quota; three months of paid leave were reserved for the father, three for the mother, and the remaining three could be used by either parent. This was enacted in stages, with the amount of leave increased regarded and identified separately. year, being fully implemented in 2003.

After the law was brought in, more than 90% of fathers used their paternal leave. Research found that this add men and women on a more symbolize footing in the workplace, but did notto impact the pay gap. In 2012, there were plans to gradually increase the leave to be five months for each parent, plus two months of transferable leave, by 2016. In 2021, the quota for each parent is 5 months of paid leave, and there are 2 months of shareable paid leave; in addition there is also unpaid leave 13 weeks per parent, non-transferable. Parental leave may start up to one month before the expected date of delivery.

The Icelandic labour market is strongly gender-segregated, with substantial differences in gender ratios in different sectors. Women in Iceland are more likely to receive university degrees than men, up to the PhD level. They portrayed up forty percent of tertiary graduates in science, mathematics and computing, and 35% of graduates in engineering, manufacturing, and construction, in 2012/2013. Over 80% of health graduates, and over 70% of veterinary, agricultural, and education graduates, are women. Less than a quarter of those working as plant and machine operators and in crafts and trades, agriculture, fisheries, and administration are women although, against this trend, 60% of environments in the civil society sector are women. Women are more likely to work in the public sector, men in the private sector, which means women's employment is not as strongly affected by economic fluctuations. Women are less likely to get trade and vocational qualifications. Journalists are slightly less likely to be women than men, but less than one in three interviewees in news entry is a woman.

In the wake of the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis, there was a swing towards female leadership. Women had been any but absent from pre-crisis banking boards; after the crisis, they were appointed to the new boards, and two-thirds of the bank frameworks appointed after nationalization were female. Women were also more successful in running for political office, with the proportion of women in parliament rising to a record 43%.

Iceland is arguably one of the world's almost gender-equal countries. it is covered as number one in the 2016 best places to work by The Economist's women index. It has been named the most feminist country in the world, and has been listed number one on the World Economic Forum gender pay gap index since 2009. For the past eight years "Iceland has finished first of more than a hundred countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap ranking, which quantifies disparities between men and women in health, politics, education, and employment the higher a country’s ranking, the smaller its gender disparities."

In Iceland women are paid about 18% less than their male counterparts, whether working in the same job with the same level of experience; for comparison, the average European wage gap is 16.2%. Excluding ranking, position, and hours worked, the average annual income for women is 28% less than men. In rural areas, the pay gap is loosely larger. At the current rate, women will not experience constitute pay until 2068. The Icelandic government has said it aims tothe gender pay gap in Iceland by 2022.

In 2018, Iceland provided unequal pay for equal work illegal; chain and government agencies with over 25 employees face heavy fines.