The gender pay gap and what to do about it in Denmark recently came to a head in the nursing profession. During the pandemic, focus on the work of nurses has come to the fore in a number of countries, including in the UK where a recent proposal for a 1% pay increase was heavily criticised. In national public sector negotiations in Denmark, nurses voted against a recent pay offer of up to 5% which was set to preserve real wages for public workers over the next three years. But research shows that it’s not just a question of a pay rise: the wage level itself is set unfairly low for those in the profession. And the root of the problem dates back to a law that came into force some 50 years ago.