Denmark Has Great Maternity Leave and Child Care Policies. So Why Aren’t More Women Advancing?

Denmark is well known for its generous social welfare system — a system that is supposed to give women and men equal access to the job market and equal possibilities of making a career. The country is often listed as being in top of the class when it comes to equal access to education, and the standard of our education is high. More Danish women complete higher education than Danish men. Given all of this, however, the country ranks surprisingly low — 80th in the world — when it comes to leveling out the gender gap in leadership.  One reason may be that men often don’t take their paternity leave; another may be that a lack of female role models in top leadership roles creates a self-perpetuating cycle of inequality.