The campaign stands as a direct wake-up call, targeting CEOs, leaders, politicians, and colleagues who have to stop neglecting the gender pay gap.

A hand-held item was sent out to the Danish government, union representatives, and HR departments.

Sadly, Denmark ranked 32 on Equality worldwide in 2022.

The Danish equal pay bill was passed in 1976 but the gender pay gap remains 13,5% as of 2021*.

Each year a community of unions join forces to create a campaign called Kvindernes Sidste Arbejdsdag (Women’s Last Workday) to create awareness of the gender pay gap.

We need to get the conversation going. Fire up the gender pay gap debate and promote the interest for a positive change from 17 unions. To encourage companies to implement an open dialogue around an equal salary for equal work.

*Behind the numbers: calculated on the basis of hourly wages for men and women throughout 2020 based on Statistics Denmark's latest standard calculation of hourly earnings.

The gender pay gap in Denmark translates to women working as involuntary volunteers from the 17th of November 2022 and for the remainder of the year.

We called it Voluntary Woman at Work.

In Denmark, it’s a tradition to receive a volunteer wristband when working for free. That’s why we created and distributed thousands of volunteer wristbands nationwide for CEOs, leaders, politicians, and colleagues to face the issue in their offices, canteens, and meeting rooms across the country.

The wristband was shared as a conversation starter with a simple and provocative statement.

17 unions point towards openness about salary as the strongest solution for economic equality between men and women. A solution welcomed by the coming EU Commission transparency initiative.

But, 60% of the Danish workforce (Human Rights study, 2017) isn’t used to speaking freely about their salary. It’s taboo, and it’s common to believe that you, as an employee, aren’t allowed to discuss your salary freely, as shown in membership data from Danish unions.

We needed to break the silence with a visible, physical object to make a clear, not-to-be-ignored statement. Encouraging women to speak up, politicians to react, and educating decision-makers in a general open dialogue about employees’ salaries. Wristbands got handed out, followed by a call to action, describing four pieces of advice on how to close the gender pay gap together.

Positioning traditional unions as progressive front-runners toward an equal Denmark.

To create awareness around females of Denmark working as volunteers, we needed a symbol easily recognisable to volunteer work; a wristband.

In just 6 days, 8.167 volunteer wristbands and additional 520 badges (for the healthcare sector) were distributed through the 17 unions to workplaces around Denmark. In collaboration with prominent ambassadors, it worked as a social campaign and got extended by different organisations supporting the initiative.

Union representatives held talks and gatherings across the country to promote the initiative and educate on solutions.

In comparison to earlier campaigns, this year’s initiative boosted supportive, organic user-generated content all the way to prime-time news, politicians’ own channels, and two of the most outspoken female-led platforms focusing on equality in a live stream session on Instagram.

Educating and informing Danes on how to close the gender pay gap once and for all.

The campaign reached 2.420.000 media impressions within a campaign period of 6 days.

Earned media

- Political engagement

- Airtime in prime-time news and radio/podcasts

- Picked up by culturally driven platforms

Paid media

- 704.901 unique people were reached in the campaign period

- 119.477 (Facebook) page engagement

- 40.408 ambassador impressions

In Denmark, it’s custom for volunteers to get a volunteer wristband when working for free (music festivals, charity events, sports, etc.).

It’s a visible symbol of a special effort within volunteer communities.