COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Danish unions, protesting a 17 percent gender wage gap, are urging working women to take the rest of the year off, beginning Friday.
"It's a way to remove the gender pay gap in a split second," Lise Johansen, campaign chief for the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, told Bloomberg News. "Go to a tropical island for the rest of the year!"
Although the suggestion is meant to be humorous, Danish unions, which represent 1.1 million public and private employees, have mounted a campaign highlighting wage disparities between men and women for five years. The confederation, which points out more women in Denmark than men hold advanced college and professional degrees, is one of five trade unions organizing what it calls "Women's Last Work Day," implying a seven-week vacation would even the discrepancy between women's and men's wages. A World Economic Forum report last week indicated Scandinavian countries, including Denmark, have been most successful in closing the gender gap. Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden led the list, followed by Denmark, comprised of data on economic participation and opportunities, education, political empowerment, and health and survival. In terms of equal pay for equal work, Denmark was 38th of 142 countries.
