The Status of Working Women in Sweden
The Status of Working Women in Sweden
Junichiro Matsumoto
University of California, Irvine
ACP BA
October 25, 2011
Abstract
Sweden has been the top-runner in the world for creating a better environment for working women. Both comparisons to the past and men, women have kept growing their presence in the society since the 1960s. As their presences strengthen, their pay has gone up as well, but not quite as much as the man. As for type of jobs, women work in workplaces where the customer needs more hospitality. What are helping the women so much are the flextime system and the country level mentality to obtain the gender equality. Sweden will be one of the best countries for working woman now, and for the future.
Introduction: Due to their overall objectives of gender equality policy to ensure that women and men have the same power to shape society and their own lives, Sweden has made effort to achieve gender equality in working environment. When the economy was in the rapid growth in the 1960s, creating equal working opportunity for women was considered to be the best way to support the economy growth (http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/research/nordic/swedenlabo.pdf). Through several social reforms in the 1970s, women’s employment rate has grown up by 40% until now, while men’s rate decreased. Now Sweden is considered as one of the most advanced countries in the world in gender equality. In Figure 1, statistics from Eurostat 2008 shows that Sweden have the world’s lowest difference in male and female employment rate (http://www.economist.com/node/15174418). Looking into more specific figures, Sweden provides 68 weeks of paid maternity leave which is world’s most longest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-life_balance). These statistics show that Sweden’s effort on creating chance for working woman has come to reality. Being a pioneer in workplace equality, Sweden has the smallest difference between male and female employment rates when compared to
Junichiro Matsumoto
University of California, Irvine
ACP BA
October 25, 2011
Abstract
Sweden has been the top-runner in the world for creating a better environment for working women. Both comparisons to the past and men, women have kept growing their presence in the society since the 1960s. As their presences strengthen, their pay has gone up as well, but not quite as much as the man. As for type of jobs, women work in workplaces where the customer needs more hospitality. What are helping the women so much are the flextime system and the country level mentality to obtain the gender equality. Sweden will be one of the best countries for working woman now, and for the future.
Introduction: Due to their overall objectives of gender equality policy to ensure that women and men have the same power to shape society and their own lives, Sweden has made effort to achieve gender equality in working environment. When the economy was in the rapid growth in the 1960s, creating equal working opportunity for women was considered to be the best way to support the economy growth (http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/research/nordic/swedenlabo.pdf). Through several social reforms in the 1970s, women’s employment rate has grown up by 40% until now, while men’s rate decreased. Now Sweden is considered as one of the most advanced countries in the world in gender equality. In Figure 1, statistics from Eurostat 2008 shows that Sweden have the world’s lowest difference in male and female employment rate (http://www.economist.com/node/15174418). Looking into more specific figures, Sweden provides 68 weeks of paid maternity leave which is world’s most longest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-life_balance). These statistics show that Sweden’s effort on creating chance for working woman has come to reality. Being a pioneer in workplace equality, Sweden has the smallest difference between male and female employment rates when compared to