Occupational Segregation In The Nordic Countries
Since the 1960s the feminist movement has gained a lot of momentum and political power. It has led us to the point of ‘gender equality’ being one of the most important political and sociological goals for modern societies. A poll recently held by Pew Research - one of the world's most reputable and well-known public opinion pollsters – has shown that the world’s populations value gender equality highly; 91% of U. S. and 86% of European respondents feel that is an issue that is very important to them. In Europe, the Nordic countries are on top in how much of the population values gender equality.
Not surprisingly, the Nordic countries are also seen as the world’s most gender-equal of all. Therefore, we should take a look at how gender equality fares in these nations, as it is indeed is one of the most important points in their political and social agendas.
The Nordic Paradox
Dr. Nima Sanandaji, Swedish author and president of the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR), has thoroughly investigated the state of gender equality in the Nordic countries and has compared these to countries that are much less proactive in promoting it. He published his results in a book titled ‘The Nordic Paradox’. And his findings truly are paradoxical. One of the main areas in which feminists are pushing for more female representation is in the share of female CEO’s, as this is a position that for all of its existence has been dominated by males. Shockingly, the percentages of female CEOs in the Nordic countries are extremely low. In Norway just 17, 7% of CEO’s is female. This number is only worse in Finland (13, 3%), Sweden (10, 6%) and Denmark (10%). In comparison, Bulgaria (47, 7%), Romania (36, 1%) and Estonia (33, 8%) have much better numbers. Moreover, even Hungary – with its right-wing government which emphasizes the return to traditional values – simply crushes Sweden (a pioneer in enacting gender equality laws) with a number of 39, 6%.
To combat these low numbers, Norway has forced companies to adopt gender quotas – rules containing a certain number of board members must be female, the results of which have been nothing but abysmal; in Norway’s 60 largest firms there were no female CEOs in 2016, even though Norway adopted these quotas 8 years prior. In The Nordic Paradox, Dr. Sanandaji argues that one of the most important reasons for these abysmal numbers is a huge welfare state which encourages women to work less hours.
The freedom to choose
We can reasonably state that women are the freest to choose their career paths in the Nordic countries, when compared to practically all other countries on Earth, thanks to the low amount of risk provided by the massive social security net. So what are the careers that women voluntarily choose in these nations? Well, when one thinks of traditionally female careers, we think – not exclusively – of careers related to nursing and care. In Norway, approximately 85% of all healthcare workers are female. This number is not very different for all the other Nordic countries. Female students in these countries also prefer studying the Arts, Design, and Healthcare studies, whereas males are much more interested in Building and Construction, Electricity and Electronics and in Technical and Industrial Production. If women, under the world’s most gender equal, pro-feminist and liberal circumstances still prefer more traditionally female studies and career paths, then the cause of this cannot simply be sexism or oppression by the ‘patriarchy’. It must either be biological (biologically encoded preferences), or social (societal expectations of what females should be like and act like).
Biological reasons for the ‘gender gap’
In a 2011 study done by Weisberg et al. , gender differences in personality traits were investigated at the level of the Big Five personality traits, which measure five spectrums of personality traits such as Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and have two aspects per spectrum, forming a total of 10 aspects. In the study, which has had a huge impact on the field of gender psychology, significant differences in personality traits between the two sexes were found for every one of the 10 Big Five aspects. For example, females have much higher scores in the traits Compassion and Agreeableness, which explains why women are much more attracted to fields where compassion is a main motivator, such as healthcare. Men score much higher scores on Industriousness, which explains why men prefer to work with things, as opposed to with people, which is mainly a female preference. In this ‘people vs. things’ dimension, one that has been studied thoroughly with regards to the genders, we can also see a huge difference between men and women. In a 2010 study by Richard A. Lippa, a very large difference was found in the preferences of men and women in either people or in things. Women were found to be much more interested in people (which again explains female preferences in career choices), and men were much more interested in things (which explains why men prefer engineering studies and careers). When we look at the gender gap in the areas of management, such as CEO and other top-level positions, we must look at Testosterone, the ‘masculinity hormone’. Recent findings have concluded that Testosterone is a major driver of human behavior; it drives humans to be more competitive, to seek dominance, power and status. These are exactly the aspects that being a CEO or political leader provide. As this hormone is naturally much more prevalent in males than in females, this can reasonably be suggested to be the reason why more males than females compete for these positions and are thus more widely represented.
A case of social pressure?
Even though the biological reasons for these gender gaps have now been thoroughly studied and proven to be significant, there still remains a case to be made for social pressure. Naturally, humans prefer ‘normal’ behavior which is cemented into our frames of reference by what we see as common; if everyone around us started driving on the left side of the road, we would quickly perceive this as the new normal. Could it be that female roles are what they are due to society seeing it as ‘normal’? Although this does seem to be the case, the biological arguments remain as the most likely explanation – by far. We can see additional proof of this in a multitude of studies done on babies in the womb, where babies that through, for example, genetic conditions received additional testosterone during the first 8 to 24 weeks, later would show much more male-like behavior and male-like interest (in things, as opposed to interest in people). This shows that even without any differing social environment, biological differences between the sexes dictate our preferences in careers and study massively.
In conclusion, we can see that occupational segregation is a result mainly of biological factors, as opposed to social factors, which is what constructivists and those talking about ‘patriarchy’ claim as the main driver of occupational segregation.
