12
votes
The state of gender equality across the EU – Sweden had the highest score of any country in 2019
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- Title
- Infographic: The State Of Gender Equality Across The EU
- Authors
- Niall McCarthy
- Published
- Oct 16 2019
- Word count
- 130 words
Is it true that in those countries with the greatest equality that the gender-role conformation is the highest?
I'm not sure I follow your question. Do you mean to ask if there is less deviation from the norm? Or do you mean that people conform more to the traditional gender roles? Or something else?
That's what I mean. When there is the greatest freedom, men/women end up becoming even more "dimorphic" in lifestyle etc.
When it comes to jobs, the Scandinavian countries definitely follow this stigma. Sweden has basically set up equality of chance in the job field, and women and men have returned to the more traditional work associated with their sex.
My experiences do not agree with this assesment. Sure, in Sweden, there are more female nurses and kindergarten teachers than male ones and there are more male programmers and construction engineers(???) than female ones. However, if you look at the trends over time I would GUESS that they would show less dominance of one gender over another in all professions, i.e. compared to 20-30 years ago the fraction of male nurses have increased. Assuming you just magically make a country equal in respect to job opportunities, it would still take a loooong time for that equality to show since most people already have a job and switching careers is rather rare.
Also I'm fairly sure there is still bias against women for entering male dominated career paths and less opportunities offered to them, even in Sweden. Humans tend to like other people who are like themselves and as such will be more inclined to promote and praise similar individuals to themselves, unless they are actively aware of this and try to evaluate more fairly (which is realy hard to do). I do believe this is less pronounced in Sweden than other countries, but I'm fairly sure this is still an issue.
Lastly, the gender roles have a wider effect than just work. While women over the years have entered the labour force to almost the same degree as men they still take on a larger burden of the household tasks. This is my guess at what the main source of inequality in Sweden is. Sure, men and women do share this burden more equaly today than in previous years, but if you are a woman you are expected to both have a job and a functioning home life. Whereas you previously could have "only" domestic responsibilites to take care of now you have that on top of working a fulltime job. In addition, there is still some cultural resistance to purchasing household services seen as womens tasks like cleaning and nannies. While services for "male" household tasks such as fixing a car or renovating a room doesn't share that stigma. Thus women do not have the same option to offload their tasks to others to the same degree...
TLDR Gender equality in Sweden is improving... slowly over the decades.
PS. As an aside for anyone interested in statistical fact about sweden you should look at https://www.scb.se/en/ the english version of the site is not 100% of the swedish one, but there are alot of stats that one can examine on there.
What do you mean by "stigma"? If you mean to use the typical meaning of the word, why is it a disgraceful thing?
Apologies, English isn't my first language. What I meant is that Sweden simply seems to follow the trend I mentioned. It would've been a better word.
Where did you get this idea? Any articles/blogs/studies? Personally, just anecdotally, it seems just the opposite to me.
It's not my own/original idea. There is a bunch of discussion about how when opportunities are truly equal for all, it allows for natural predispositions/advantages to flourish.
Here's one discussion of research on it. NB: it's still fairly new and not robustly tested yet.
I also remember hearing about a study with those results, but can’t find any links now.
I like that. Many analysis only worries with the economical aspect, but how do you deal with the fact that some women legitimately, and of their own volition, do not desire to pursue certain careers and positions which pay more, in search of other benefits?