Norway's Gender-Neutral Military Conscription (Allmenn Verneplikt)

In 2015 Norway became the first NATO member and first European country to make military conscription obligatory for women on the same formal terms as men, with the first fully gender-neutral conscript class called up in 2016. The reform widened the pool of eligible 19-year-olds screened each year from roughly 30,000 to 60,000 candidates and made selection formally sex-blind, with the Armed Forces choosing about 8,000-10,000 conscripts from that pool.

Before the reform, women made up roughly 13% of those in initial military service in 2014, according to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. By the 2016 intake, 32.7% of successful conscript candidates were women (War on the Rocks); by 2020, women made up about a third of those completing initial service; and by the end of 2024 the Ministry of Defence reported the figure had stayed above 32%, describing it as "one in three conscripts."

A 2020 internal Armed Forces study (the "MOST" survey), cited by SecurityWomen.org, found that 63% of women under 30 in the forces reported experiencing sexual harassment, and a 2019 report logged 44 sexual-assault reports in a single year with only two pursued as formal complaints. SecurityWomen.org also notes that although roughly a third of conscripts are now women, only about 18.9% of longer-term military employees are women, suggesting intake gains have not yet fully carried through into retention.