Tjänstesektorn och jämställdheten bland näringslivets högre chefer

Abstract

Why are there fewer women at top positions in the private sector in Sweden than in the private sector of many other industrialized countries, in short, why do women have so little economic power in Sweden? In an attempt to answer this question Magnus Henrekson takes the analysis of last years's final report from the Swedish government commission dealing with this issue (Kvinnomaktutredningen, SOU 1998:6) as his point of departure. An important assumption underlying the analysis is that social gender cannot explain the difference between women in Sweden and other countries. This difference, it is claimed, has to be explained by factors specific to Sweden. Thus, no attempt is made to explain the fact that women have less economic power than men in all industrialized countries. In the paper it is documented in some detail that the volume of household work has remained very large despite the introduction of a number of labor-saving technologies in the household. Moreover, a number of tasks have been transfered from the professional sector to the household sector, notably as a result of the downsizing of public sector service production. The high tax burden on labor has efficiently impeded expansion of the household-related service sector. As a result, less tirne is made available for women to pursue a professional career in industry, and therefore women as a group meet yet another obstacle to attaining positions providing economic power. The high taxes have also made it possible to expand public employment more than in any other OECD country. Women have been offered jobs in the public sector on terms that make it easier to reconcile a professional career with continued responsibility for the bulk of the unpaid household work. This fact is likely to have weakened the incentives for women to acquire economic power in private industry and to have decreased the demand for household-related services. It is also documented that the sum total of household work in Sweden is so extensive, that an equal sharing of the total workload between the spouses is likely to lead to a situation where neither the woman nor the man in the family is able to pursue a career that leads to the attainment of economic power. The policy pursued in Sweden may have had a positive effect on gender equality in the sense that women have gained greater economic independence from their male partner. On the other hand, it is likely to have weakened the incentives for women to acquire positions in the private sector from which economic power can be wielded.