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Denmark’s gender equality policies: no quotas and a focus on men

Women hold all of the Danish government’s top jobs, but Denmark lags behind the rest of the Nordic countries measured in paternity leave and women in leadership positions.

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Women dominate Danish politics

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, party leader, the governing Socialist Democrats (in the middle in the picture above)

Margrethe Vestager, party leader, government coalition partner the Danish Social-Liberal Party (to the right)

Annette Vilhelmsen, party leader, government coalition partner the Socialist People’s Party (to the left)

Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, political spokeswoman and leader of the parliamentary group for the supporting party the Red-Green Alliance, which has a collective leadership

The new rules’ impact on Danish companies:

From 1 April 2013 around 1,100 of Denmark’s largest companies will identify aims for how many of the underrepresented sex they want to get into top management.

They will also have a policy for how to increase the number of the unrepresented sex in the company’s other leadership positions.

The companies will demonstrate progress towards these aims and for developing policies etc. in their annual reports.

State institutions and companies regardless of size will identify aims, and public companies and institutions with more than 50 employees will develop policies to get more women into management.

State institutions and companies will demonstrate progress towards these aims and for developing policies etc. to the minister responsible, who will then report to the Minister for Gender Equality and Church.

Women on Danish boards in 2012:

Women in listed companies May 2012: 7 percent

Women in limited companies May 2012: 19 percent

Source: Kvinderiledelse.dk (The Ministry for Gender Equality and Church)

Women in the EU’s largest listed companies in 2012

EU-27: 14%

Denmark: 16%

Sweden: 25%

Iceland: 25%

Finland: 27%

Norway: 42%

Source: Kvinfo.dk, the Danish Centre for Information on Gender, Equality and Diversity, and the EU report ‘Women in Economic decision-making in the EU’