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Denmark expands military service to include women
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 1, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 1, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Denmark will require women to register for military conscription from 2025, aiming to strengthen defenses amid European security concerns.
By Tom Little and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Denmark on Tuesday expanded its military service to include women, as the Nordic country seeks to recruit more soldiers and strengthen its defences amid heightened security concerns across Europe.
Under a law passed by Denmark's parliament in June 2023, Denmark will require women turning 18 after July 1, 2025, to register for assessment days for potential military conscription, aligning with measures already in place for men.
Until now, women, who last year made up around 24% of all recruits, had been allowed to join the military on a voluntary basis.
"In the world situation we're in right now, it's necessary to have more conscripts, and I think that women should contribute to that equally, as men do," Katrine, a recruit in the Danish Royal Life Guard, told Reuters without giving her last name.
In Denmark, volunteers are signed up first for conscription, while the remaining numbers are drawn up in a lottery system.
The armed forces are in the process of making adjustments in barracks and equipment better suited for women.
"There are different things that they need to improve, especially in terms of equipment. Right now, it's made for men, so perhaps the rucksacks are a bit too large and the uniforms are large as well," said Katrine.
Denmark, which together with NATO allies last week agreed to boost defence spending, plans to gradually increase the duration of the conscription period from four months to 11 months in 2026 and raise the number of recruits doing military service from around 5,000 now to 7,500 in 2033.
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Tom Little, editing by Franklin Paul)
Denmark's parliament passed a law in June 2023 requiring women turning 18 after July 1, 2025, to register for assessment days for potential military conscription.
Last year, women made up around 24% of all recruits in the Danish military.
Denmark plans to gradually increase the duration of the conscription period from four months to 11 months starting in 2026.
The armed forces are making adjustments in barracks and equipment to better suit women, including improving uniforms and rucksacks that are currently designed for men.
Denmark is expanding military service to include women in response to the current global security situation, emphasizing the need for more conscripts and equal contribution from both genders.
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