"I will not work on Women's Day"

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir says she will not work on Women’s day next Tuesday as many other women. She says she will not call a cabinet meeting on that day and that she expects other women in the cabinet to stay home as well.

“I will not work this day as I expect all the women here will do as well,” she told a journalist at mbl.is after the government meeting this morning.

Still tackling the gender-based wage gap

Jakobsdóttir said that there is still some ways to go to achieve the goals of equal pay for the genders and that this is unacceptable. “I am first and foremost in this to show solidarity with Icelandic women. 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.”

When asked about the state’s position on equal pay, Jakobsdóttir said that the wage gap was growing, both in the state, municipalities and the general market. She said that the government is now looking into how so called women’s professions are valued in comparison to traditional men’s professions. To do this, a project has been launched within four different state institutions. These are the Westfjords Healthcare Institution, the Social Insurance Administration, the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, and the Marine Research Institute.

“We are looking at how these jobs are different from the average, because we estimate that the difference in wages that exists is due to this,” Jakobsdóttir concluded.