No abstract

In current research, the extensive family policies of the Scandinavian countries have been problematized and described as hampering women's careers. However, mechanisms have been little investigated and the Scandinavian countries are often regarded as a single policy model. Based on an account of institutional variety we study gender gaps in hourly wages and access to authority positions in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and explore the importance of segregation, skills and work interruptions. The analysis uses pooled cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 2004 and 2010. The results show that gender gaps vary both in size and regarding the mechanisms producing them. In particular, we find that gender segregation has a radically different impact in the four countries. The analysis suggests that the mechanisms linking family policies to labour market outcomes are more complex than envisaged in the current debate and point to the importance of comparing seemingly similar countries.

The gender wage gap within a highly prestigious occupation, the medical profession, is investigated both longitudinally and cross-sectionally using Swedish administrative data. This is done by investigating: to what extent the gender wage gap among physicians varies between fields of medicine (within-occupation segregation) and across family status; whether there is an association between parenthood and wages among physicians and, if so, whether there is a gender difference in this association; and changes in the gender wage gap among physicians over time.The results indicate a large overall gender wage difference for medical doctors. Even when gender differences in specialization are taken into account, men have higher wages than women do. For both men and women physicians, there is a positive association between parenthood and wages. The longitudinal analyses show that the gender wage gap among physicians was greater in 2007 than in 1975.

Using data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (2000, 2010), we investigate how the gender wage gap varies with occupational prestige and family status and also examine the extent to which this gap is explained by time-consuming working conditions. In addition, we investigate whether there is an association between parenthood, job characteristics and wage (as differentiated by gender). The analyses indicate that there are gender differences regarding prestige-based pay-offs among parents that are partly explained by fathers’ greater access to employment characterized by time-consuming conditions. Separate analyses for men and women demonstrate the presence of a marriage wage premium for both genders, although only men have a parenthood wage premium. This fatherhood premium is however only present in high-prestigious occupations. Compared with childless men, fathers are also more advantaged in terms of access to jobs with time-consuming working conditions, but the wage gap between fathers and childless men is not explained by differences in access to such working conditions.

No abstract

The wage differential between women and men persists in advanced economies despite the inflow of women into qualified occupations in recent years. Using five waves of the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey (LNU), this paper explores the gender wage gap in Sweden during the 1974-2010 period overall and by skill level. The empirical analyses showed that the general gender wage gap has been nearly unchanged for the past 30 years. However, the gender difference in wage in less qualified occupations fell considerably, whereas the gender pay gap remained stable for men and women in qualified occupations. The larger significance of family responsibilities for wages in qualified occupations is one likely explanation for this result.

Research consistently shows that the share of females in an occupation is negatively associated with wages, and this has frequently been interpreted as an expression of devaluation of women's work. However, few studies have described the detailed shape of the relationship between wages and occupational sex composition. Using Swedish register data from 2001 and 2003, I advance our understanding of the devaluation process by studying the functional form more closely in both the cross-section and panel. The analyses reveal a non-linear relationship between sex composition and wages, where the highest wages for both men and women are earned in sex-integrated occupations. Second, studying the wage payoffs of people moving across occupations with varying sex compositions shows that both sexes gain by moving to relatively sex-integrated occupations (about 25 to 54% female).

Mental health problems are associated with a greater risk of being Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) during young adulthood. Yet evidence on the extent to which self-reported mental health problems precede males' and females’ NEET status and on the potential pathways linking mental health problems to NEET is lacking. This study examines the longitudinal associations that internalising and externalising problems during adolescence share with the risk of being NEET in young adulthood, with a focus on the mediating role of school performance. Data comes from a representative sample of 4,452 Swedish youth (51% females) who provided information on internalising and externalising problems at age 14–15 years. Information on secondary school grades (age 15–16 years), completion of upper secondary school (age 20–21 years) and NEET status at 21–22 years were drawn from administrative registers. Overall, 6% of participants were NEET at 21–22 years of age and rates were higher for those who had internalising and externalising problems at age 14–15 years. A series of gender-stratified multivariate regression models showed that for both genders, greater internalising and externalising problems predicted lower school grades and a reduced likelihood of upper secondary school completion. However, externalising problems were associated with an increased risk of being NEET for males, while internalising problems were associated with a higher likelihood of being NEET for females. The effects of externalising and internalising problems for males and females, respectively, were partially mediated by school performance. The findings indicate that mental health problems in adolescence are associated with exclusion from the labour market and education in early adulthood, but that internalising and externalising problems represent different risks for males and females. Furthermore, school performance in comprehensive and upper secondary school helps explain links between mental health problems and subsequent NEET status.