Women walk out in Iceland to strike against the gender pay gap. There's a lesson for the US

From classrooms to corporate offices to household cleaning, women across Iceland walked away from work − both paid and unpaid − Tuesday to demand improvements to unequal pay and gender-based violence.

The "kvennafrí", or women's day off, emphasizes the power of women's work, from the executive chair to household cleaning.

When women aren't there to work, who really pays?

"What's happening in Iceland is a visible demonstration of women's labor," Amy Diehl, a gender equity researcher and author of "GLASS WALLS: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work." With women on strike, men are left to "pick up the pieces," she told USA TODAY.

"(The strike) sends a very strong signal to what women do," Diehl said. "When work is underpaid or not paid at all, it's just taken for granted and is unseen. The benefit of this strike is it makes this kind of labor visible − the women's labor that's often taken for granted."

Iceland, a Northern European nation with a population of 380,000, is the only nation to have closed more than 90% of the gender gap, according to the World Economic Forum, and has held the top spot in gender parity for 14 years in a row.

According to the 2023 Global Gender Gap Index, no country has yet achieved full gender parity. The United States ranks 43 out of 146 countries in the index and experts say America is trailing countries like Iceland in terms of policies such as paid family leave, employer accountability, increased minimum wage, or promoting union representation to establish fair bargaining power.

With a far larger population that is geographically, racially and economically diverse than Iceland, how is the U.S. ever supposed to catch up?

"The statistics can hide what's going on at the individual level," Diehl said, meaning even if America meets the right gender equality indicators to close the gap, there's no guarantee the benefits will be realized homogenously among women and other marginalized groups, experts said.

"It is a more complex issue in the United States," said Ann Warner, interim CEO at the International Center for Research on Women. "Gender is one important facet of the pay gap ... When we look at the intersection between gender and race, we see those gaps widen even more."

Even a global gender leader is calling out the need for progress

Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdóttir joined thousands of women on the day of the strike, which was the nation's first such event since Oct. 24, 1975, when 90% of women refused to work, clean, or look after children to voice anger at discrimination in the workplace.

“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,” she told news website mbl.is. “We are still tackling gender-based violence, which has been a priority for my government to tackle.”

"It's so interesting to hear that Iceland is the most gender-equitable country in the world, and yet, they are not equal yet," said Warner. "(Iceland) is taking a really extreme and strong action to stop and say that, 'even where we are in Iceland, which is far beyond many other countries in the world, this is not good enough.'"

What to do in the US

There are many ways to intervene in gender inequality in the U.S., from widening access to health care to promoting participation in male-dominated fields, Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute told USA TODAY, but it's not a one-size-fits-all all solution when gendered pay difference maps across so many different systems, especially race.

"I think there's no silver bullet in the United States to close the gender pay gap," Gould said. "We have a lot more economic inequality in general."

Going to college and getting a salaried position might seem like the obvious answer, but research by Harvard professor Claudia Goldin found that even if women are college-educated and have high-paying jobs, long, inflexible hours exacerbate the gender pay gap.Goldin received a Nobel Prize in economics for her groundbreaking work on women in the labor market.

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"Getting women in high-paying careers doesn't do anything about getting men involved with caretaking," Diehl said. Having a large class of salaried women doesn't disrupt precarious cycles of care work that historically employ Black and brown women, many of whom are immigrants, and have few employment options, Gould said.

"(Care workers) are women with less power to actually be able to bargain for better wages," Gould said. "The best way to get a wage increase is often to get an offer somewhere else. And if you've limited other offers, then you're not going to have that leverage."

And while U.S. women's workforce participation has recouped to pre-pandemic levels, that's not a signal to relax, Gould said. Prior to the pandemic, the goal posts for the gender gap hadn't moved much, she said, so it's important not to slip backward.

"The way we have set up our economy devalues the work women do," Gould said, adding even if women and men do the same jobs, there are still likely to be pay differences based on sex. Her tip: Always ask for pay transparency.

"I think that a lot of women don't even realize how much less are being paid," she said.

The U.S. also needs more women in leadership positions so that a dynamic range of voices are represented in decision-making, Diehl said.

"In a utopian society you would have complete diversity in all industries, including caretaking," Diehl said. "I think the way we're pushing current initiatives, they still reinforce inequality."

Large-scale efforts, such as Iceland's strike, are also an important strategy for change, Warner said.

"Iceland has ground to a halt because women refused to work," she said. "That shows really vividly just how much our society depends on the paid and unpaid labor of women. And sometimes you need those dramatic moments to compel decision-makers to take action. And I think that there's a lot to be learned from that here in the United States."

As for a strike, Diehl said she would love for something like this to happen in the U.S. "but like for a week, to really drive the point home."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iceland women revolt against gender pay gap. Can US learn from strike?