Sweden: an extended working life policy that overlooks gender considerations

Abstract

The Swedish government policy on extended working life has since its introduction in the mid-1990s aimed to lower the costs of the public pension system and to reduce the financial burden for workers. By focusing on an idealised category of those who are "willing and able to work longer", the policy has neglected the obstacles faced by those with physically demanding jobs or with a big responsibility to care for a close relative. This mainly affects women and upholds a neoliberal view of older people. By only problematizing gender perspective on the challenges to gender equality in working life, a narrow understanding of gender equality is created which deviates from other national gender equality policies. The policy debate thereby contributes also to excluding older women and men from the Swedish gender equality project. Despite the argument that an extended working life is needed to ensure the value of pensions, this does not apply to those who are unable to continue working - they are instead expected to rely on the social security scheme.

Job Quality in the Late Career in Sweden, Japan and the United States

“…How likely is it that a person in paid work at age 55 will remain in work and experience better working conditions in their late sixties? There may be substantial differences in relation to societal context and individual characteristics, be they ascribed characteristics such as race and gender or earlier circumstances and events (Krekula et al, 2017; McAllister et al, 2019). Future research could incorporate trajectories involving withdrawal from the labour market while measuring temporal variations in working conditions.…”

A Gender Perspective on Teachers as Crisis Managers

“…Teachers' experience of stressful conditions is multifaceted. First, stresses are found in organizational structures with reduced resources, demanding psychosocial work environment bringing stress and pressure as a consequence (Krekula, Engström, & Alvinius, 2017), shifting job satisfaction, but also antagonistic aspects such as bullying and abuse. Second, the working environment for teachers seems to be one of the most stressful of all occupational groups (Kjellström, Almquist, & Modin, 2016), which is the result of the 1990s school reforms (SOU, 2014:5) and resource reductions in Sweden.…”

Gendered retirement pathways across lifecourse regimes

“…Besides the three empirical indicators used by Möhring, we included an additional criterion, based on broad EWL policy orientations adopted in the mid-2000s in different national contexts (Buchholz et al, 2006;Ní Léime et al, 2017, 2020. Previous research has identified two main policy responses to population ageing: 'employment exit' policies, which encourage the early retirement of older workers, and 'employment maintenance' policies, which provide opportunities for extending working lives (Buchholz et al, 2006;König and Schilling, 2016).…”