Despite being on average more educated, homosexual men in Iceland make roughly 33% less than heterosexual men, a new study has found. The new data gives the country an opportunity to make improvements, the chairman of the Icelandic Confederation of University Graduates (BHM) says. RÚV reported first.
The study was conducted by BHM in collaboration with The Federation of State and Municipal Employees (BSRB), the Confederation of Labour (ASÍ), the National Queer Organisation of Iceland (Samtökin ’78), and the University of Iceland’s Institute of Economic Studies. It involved a survey as well as analysis of jointly-taxed men and jointly-taxed women’s tax returns for the year 2019.
Job insecurity higher among LGBTQ+ community
While the study found that gay men made around a third less than straight men, it also found that lesbians made around 13% more than straight women. Vilhjálmur Hilmarsson, an economist at BHM, wondered why this was the case. “What people consider masculinity, is there a premium for that on the Icelandic labour market?”
Of the groups that were compared, gay men fared worst in the COVID-19 pandemic: nearly four out of every ten received unemployment benefits during the pandemic, which the study’s authors contributed to the fact that many homosexual men work in the service industries.
The study also showed that trans people experienced higher job insecurity: seven out of ten stated that they had experienced unemployment.
BHM Chairman Friðrik Jónsson stated that the new data made the problem impossible to deny. “We need to respond, we need to take action. That’s the main thing this work shows, for me. Having the evidence gives us the weapons and tools to say, alright, how can we solve this? How can we improve our society? Because at the end of the day, that’s what we all want. We want to live in a better society, for everyone.”
