Compared with neighbouring Sweden, Denmark has fewer formal rules on gender equality, and less of a tradition of practising internal gender equality – generally, in both the public and private sector as well as, specifically, in the media industry. Public broadcaster DR has implemented a gender quota at the managerial level (minimum 40% women) and both DR and TV 2 monitor the in-house gender distribution and wage gap. Some newspaper companies (such as JP/Politikens Hus) include a formal commitment to equal pay in their annual and corporate social responsibility (CSR) report (JP/Politikens Hus, 2018: 19).
The salary gap between men and women in Denmark is 13 per cent in general (Poulsen, 2018), and 5 per cent in the media industry (Obitsø, 2020b). The salaries of female journalists are already a little lower at the entry level and there is a significant difference in the type of jobs that pay the most at entry level for either women or men (Obitsø, 2020a).
According to The Danish Union of Journalists, 48 per cent of their members are female and 52 per cent are male; however, members of the union do not necessarily work as journalists. According to a study on Danish journalists by Skovsgaard and colleagues (2012), 46 per cent of Danish journalists are women and 54 per cent are men. However, gender differences become wider at the top level and managerial positions (Andreassen, 2015, based on a Women and Media Industries in Europe report). The 2017 Media Pluralism Monitor places Denmark at low to medium risk on the dimension of “access to media for women”, stating that “women are still under represented compared to men in the news, but women are well represented in the key positions in PSM” (Netterstrøm, 2017: 7).
Interviewees stated, on the one hand, that there is an increased focus on gender balance in the newsroom, but on the other, they acknowledged that there is still a pay gap between men and women, with men having higher salaries. Several stated that the pay gap is a high priority and needs to be addressed, and some mentioned that media strives for gender balance in inviting candidates to job interviews. Interestingly, they seldom referred to their own reports and written statements on the subject.
