'Gender Segregation in the Swedish Labour Market Essay\r'

' mankind\r\nSweden and the natural(prenominal) S gitdinavian countries atomic name 18 widely cognise for their strong commit manpowert to equality between takeforce and wo workforce. During the developwork forcet of the welfargon disparateiate the g completely overnwork forcet support women’s intimacy in the struggle commercialize. This momented in a high rate of feminine practice session in Sweden today. Regarding this, it is striking that the Swedish labor mart has one of the highest degrees of sex requisition in the world and considerable sexual practice inequalities. The roots for this requisition can be seen in the growing welf be state with women starting to turn tail overall in the open and service sector in atomic number 18as like wellness care and child-care while men electrostatic rule in the underground sector. Policies for women’s integration and several(prenominal) a nonher(prenominal) government measures to desegregate the la bor market were implemented and performed in the last years. However, today the sexual urge segregation in Sweden is still at a higher(prenominal) level than in the majority of the some other countries in Europe. This written report offers an analysis of the Swedish labor market regarding grammatical gender with an economical perspective.\r\nOccupational sexual practice Segregation\r\n sexual urge Segregation is one of the nearly discussed topics in Europe especially in Sweden. The segregation that will be analyzed in this paper can be seen as a result of multidimensional process which is manifested in differences in gender patterns of representation within occupations as well as within different interlocking contract groups and use of goods and services status (http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/written document/dp0302.pdf , p. 2). â€Å"Gender segregation content that women and men to a certain extent work in different occupations or in different sectors or under diff erent contractual terms and conditions” (ibid p. 2). The gender-based occupational segregation is both the â€Å"tendency for men and women to be employed in different occupations”, which is the horizontal segregation and the tendency to be employed in â€Å"different positions within the uniform occupation or occupational group”, the vertical segregation (http://ilo-mirror.library.cornell.edu/ national/english/support/publ/pdf/women.pdf#page=198, p. 191).\r\nTo measure segregation, the advocator of Dis uniformity (ID) is most widely used in the research literature and as well in this paper. Its prise ranges from 0, which is â€Å"no segregation with equal percent of women and men in each and every occupation” to 1, which is â€Å" masterly segregation with womanish workers in occupations where there are no male workers” (idib., p. 196). It is important to include a discussion of division of work in the plates when expression at gender segre gation. In Scandinavian countries a cardinal-bread-winner model is the norm with subcontracted work in the households. At the same time, the former common women’s household work like caring for children, elderly and handicapped people was and is more(prenominal)(prenominal) and more taken over by the state-supported sector. This expanding macrocosm sector leads to new utilisations for women and has an impact on the gender segregation which is as well as worth to be examined (http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/papers/dp0302.pdf , p. 2).\r\nFacts and figures\r\nSweden has one of the highest pistillate employment rates and a high womanly education level. At the same time, data evoke that Sweden’s gender segregation is decreasing in the labour market, but still at a high level (http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/papers/dp0302.pdf, p. 4). art object the gender segregation for the European Union as a whole is still comparatively high, the Mediterranean and eastern countries have a rather low segregation in comparison to the high-segregated Nordic countries (http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=4028&type A;langId=en, p. 7). A closer look on the Swedish labour market reveals that, especially in the private sector, women are under-presented in jobs at a higher level and they usually have light positions.\r\nalternatively a great number of egg-producing(prenominal)s is employed in the public sector and working part time. to a greater extentover, women still perform two third of all their amateur work at home (Gender equality and occupational segregation in Nordic labour markets, p. 190). In 1992 one half of all employed distaff employment worked in the public sector. Whereas, men employment was represented with one-quarter. In general, the labour force participation of women in Sweden is quiet strong. Already in 1990, female participation was at a level of 49,5% in comparison to lower levels in North the States (45%) and to other European Countries (39% Gender equality and occupational segregation in Nordic labour markets, p. 194f.).\r\n look into proves that Sweden has a relatively high level of occupational segregation by sex. Although the ID decreased from 0,731 in 1970 to 0,641 in 1990, it is still higher than in other countries. The U.S.A. had an ID of 0,55 in 1990 and France 0,60. hike upmore the norm of 14 non-Nordic OECD countries was 0,55 (idib, p. 197ff.)\r\nA ulterior study of 15 EU members in 2000 shows the same tendency. It drifted Sweden on the twinkling place afterward Finland according to the ID segregation index (http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/papers/dp0302.pdf, p. 32)\r\nFurther research indicates a counterweight of females in female- dominated occupations, which is relatively and absolutely high in comparison to the stand-in of the European countries except for Norway and Finland, which show a sympathetic labour market structure as Sweden. While the percentage of female employments in occupations with more than 70% females decreased slightly from 72,9% to 69,2% from 1970 to 1970, the proportion of females employed in occupations with more than 90% female office level increased in these years from 37,5% to 42,2%. This female dominance is non typical for the rest of Europe. In 1990 the other 14 OECD countries had a percentage of 22% in the occupations with more than 80% females. This is heartyly lower than the 58,2% in Sweden (idib, p. 199ff.)\r\nThe examination of male employment in male-dominant occupations shows similar numbers. This result is, however, not atypical as Sweden is accompany by the other OECD countries concerning this male dominance (idib, p. 202f.).\r\nMore recent findings indicate that the female dominance in the public sector is still high. In 2000 the proportion of women’s employment in Sweden’s public sector was 62,1% in comparison to the EU average of 42,7% (http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/pape rs/dp0302.pdf, p. 28)\r\nâ€Å"Female” and â€Å"male” occupations\r\nDue to the gender segregation some jobs are female dominated and others are known as typically male. The postpone shows the 10 most â€Å"feminized” occupations in Sweden (idib, p. 204). The occupations are associated with every caring, manual dexterity or are think to the typical household-work. On the first place rank â€Å"Dental assistants and other health workers”; in the second place come â€Å"Telephone switch notice operators, etc.” and third are â€Å"House keeper in private service, childcare in families and at home”.\r\nStill male dominant are technical occupations like chemists and physicists in comparison to female laboratory assistants. Furthermore, typically female occupations can be found in the nursing and teaching area. However, the number of females in teaching decrease according to the procession level of teaching: 96% of pre-primary teachers are w omen in Nordic countries, but only 30% are female university teachers. Moreover, in the Nordic countries the same as in industrialized countries in general, women are over-represented in the service area (idib., p. 206ff).\r\nVertical Segregation and lock inequalities\r\nWomen in Sweden are concentrated in lower-paid and lower-status occupations. For pattern only 40% of the shop managers are female, whereas 75% of the shop personnel are women (idib., p. 209). Furthermore, in 2000 women in higher level jobs as share of all women in employment was only 20,8% (http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/papers/dp0302.pdf, p. 27). Gender offend in lucre can be seen as a consequence of segregation. However, in Sweden the orifice is lower than in other countries. While Sweden created umpteen occupations in the public sector, the wage differences were compressed acceptable to a huge influence of union federations and employer associations.\r\n in addition laws have been established to s ecure equal pay for equal work. For this reason, the women forced into particular jobs do not earn much lower wages than men and the high level of gender segregation goes on with a relatively low wage gap (http://books.google.de/books?id=-7umiJpO_zIC& group A;pg=PA47& angstrom;lpg=PA47& amp;dq=gender+segregation,+sweden&source=bl&ots=WME1izrf2g&sig=qxVvzUAEWzaeMrf4qVXbQatotHQ&hl=de&ei=9KL7TKP4HM_sOcaEndUK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CGAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=gender%20segregation%2C%20sweden&f=false, p. 20f.). In fact the gap between earnings is significantly smaller in comparison to other countries. In general women’s wages are relatively high, but still lower than men’s. This is alike due to many women working in the public sector where the wages are lower than in the private sector.\r\nAnother analysis by the European Comission in 2002 shows the women’s wages as a percentage of men’s. In typ ical male occupations like engine man, skilled or garden worker women earn only 95% to 98% of men’s wage. However, inequalities besides hold out the other way round. In typical female occupations like nurses or child minder men earn less than women. Women earn up to cv% of men’s wage. It can be verbalise that differences and inequalities exist, but concerning the wages they are not significant (http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=4028&langId=en, p. 80).\r\nImpact of change magnitude female employment on gender segregation\r\nThe ontogeny of the last centuries in the European Union (15 members) does not show a trade-off between increasing segregation and increasing female employment. However, with focus on the short and medium run or with bodge country comparison the opposite was found: In particular in the 1990s, there is evidence of a positive correlation between high female employment rates and gender segregation in the labour market on a more or l ess temporary basis.\r\nThese study results were also due to the nordic countries including Sweden with their high degree of segregation and high-employment. One reason for this is the common Swedish family which has two breadwinners. With both parents working it is usually the woman who has to work in a â€Å"family friendly occupation” with limber schedules. For this reason, the positive effect of rising women’s employment in order to drive desegregation may only exist in the long term. (,http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/cete/papers/dp0302.pdf p. 3, http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=4028&langId=en, p. 35ff.).\r\nGovernment measures\r\nConcluding remarks and take in\r\nSegregation is not only harmful and precipitous for the people affect by it, but it is also undesirable in high developed and industrial societies. Also the efficiency of the labor market as a whole can be affected negatively. It is highly reasonable that Sweden and the EU take mea sures to improve equality in the labor market. However, segregation also has a positive side. Some argue that it protects women’s employment from male competition and upholds demand for female labor. The public sector also offer more secure employment especially between 1992 and 1994. This proceeds for women is now diminished due to reorganization of the public sector. (Gender equality and occupational segregation in Nordic labour markets Von Helinä Melkas,Richard Anker,International Labour Office, p. 191).\r\n'