As different as two drops of water?

This article presents some facts on the development of women’s participation in the work force in Norway and Sweden since the dissolution of the union between the two countries in 1905, particularly in relation to publicly-financed child care and parental leave, which are important instruments in promoting gender equality. Women’s political rights and mobilisation are other important facets of gender-related policies. What has the development been like in Norway and Sweden, and which country was first with what measures? Are the two countries becoming more alike?

From more Norwegian to more Swedish women in paid employment

Among a third of those in paid employment around 1900 were women, both in Norway and in Sweden (figure 1). Single women and widows participated most frequently in the workforce. However, the definition of employment was very limited and the work carried out by farmers’ wives and a lot of seasonal employment was not included. The reason the proportion was so high was due to the increasing rate of industrialisation and urbanisation. This process, which continued throughout the 20 ^{t h} century, provided opportunities for paid employment for women, for the “liberated hands”. Even though the proportion of women in paid employment was somewhat higher in Norway than in Sweden around the turn of the century, the rate of industrialisation and urbanisation grew faster in Sweden, and became more all-encompassing than in Norway. Thus the labour force participation rate rose at a higher pace in Sweden.

A higher degree of “housewifery” in Norway

Women accounted for an increasingly smaller proportion of the workforce in Norway during the inter-war period and immediately after World War II. In Sweden on the other hand, the development was more fluctuating, but women’s proportion of the workforce was higher there than in Norway from about 1915. While the proportion of women in paid employment remained fairly constant in Norway, it grew in Sweden until about 1930, thereafter stagnating, and then rising from 1945 and onwards. From the 1920s it was much more common for married women of all ages to have a job in Sweden than it was in Norway. Gro Hagemann relates this to more traditional family norms in Norway, and a significantly different level of acceptance of gender equality, as well as more active feminists, in the Swedish social democratic movement.

It became more common to get married after World War II, and the average age of marriage went down in both countries. There was a baby boom, and the labour force participation rate for women remained low. In 1950, only 5.4 per cent of married women in Norway had paying jobs, and about double that in Sweden. Until 1960, the proportion of Norwegian women in the workforce declined, while rising to some degree in Sweden. One reason for this was that Norwegian women for a long period of time had more children than their Swedish counterparts, and were therefore more likely to stay at home. Also, recruiting female workers was on the labour market political agenda in Sweden as early as the 1940s.

However, after 1960 there was a “women’s revolution” in industry; more and more married women and women with children were entering the workforce. Both countries were experiencing a women-friendly industrial and commercial development and had a fairly women-friendly (social democratic) state. The welfare state expanded, and we had “the public revolution”. The growth in married women’s labour participation took place about ten years later in Norway than in Sweden, and the growth rate increased more slowly in the beginning. About 25 per cent of married women in Norway were working in 1970, compared to 40 per cent in Sweden (figure 2). Norway was to a greater extent, and for a longer period of time, a country of housewives. One reason for this was the differences in industrial development, another was the later expansion of the welfare state due to Norway’s participation in World War II.

From the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, an increasing amount of Norwegian and Swedish women took paying jobs. When Norwegian women first started entering the workforce in droves, the pace of development quickened and the differences between the countries decreased. Sixty-nine per cent of Norwegian women and 76 per cent of Swedish women were in paid employment in 1993 (figure 3). The workforce participation rate for Swedish women has since remained stable or decreased somewhat, which is probably connected to economic downturns in Sweden. On the other hand, it has increased in Norway, probably owing to better economic times. The difference between the two countries has now evened out, with approximately 75 per cent of both Norwegian and Swedish women participating in the workforce, a high proportion in international terms.

Norwegian and Swedish “gender equality light”

Working part-time is still more common in Norway than in Sweden (figure 3). Thirty-three per cent of Swedish and 41 per cent of Norwegian women worked part-time in 2003. However, it has become more common for mothers to work full-time during the last few years. The relatively high degree of part-time work among women in Norway and Sweden must be seen in light of the general observation that in countries with a high degree of work participation among women, many work part-time, whereas in countries where it is low, it is often the case that when women work, they work full-time.

Part-time employment is thus still a solution when juggling the demands of work and family life for mothers in both Norway and Sweden, while fathers work full-time and overtime. Statistics Norway researcher Kari Skrede (2004) calls this “gender equality light”; the mother has work and participates in the upkeep of the family, but the father is the main provider.

Public child care and parental leave

Access to child care providers is very important if women with small children are to take jobs outside the home. The growth in publicly-funded child care is intrinsically linked to the development of the welfare state, and in the first half of the 20 ^{t h} century this was not high on the political agenda in either country.

Present day kindergartens and other child care facilities are to some extent rooted in privately and charitably-organised and financed child care, which began in the late 19 ^th century. Roughly speaking, we are talking about children’s asylums and crèches for children of poor mothers or working class mothers who had to find paid employment on the side. These were later called “day nurseries” in both Norway and Sweden. On the other hand, we find kindergartens for the middle and upper classes. These were meant to be an educational supplement to children’s upbringing at home. It was a part-time offer for children of stay-at-home mothers (these facilities were later called playschool and part-time groups in Sweden). Before publicly-funded kindergartens became an option, most families with working mothers relied on private child care.

Sweden was first with public child care

The topic of public child care first arose in Sweden in the late 1930s and the early 1940s in the wake of a population commission and several studies on public child care. According to Peter Amtman (1996), playschools were, interestingly enough, considered best for the children in the first of these studies, and it was thought important to support these facilities as the stay-at-home mothers who used them were a larger group than the working mothers who relied on day care. On the basis of a public study from 1943 on the public funding of pre-schools and crèches, both types of facilities were gradually established, even though the public subsidy was fairly low. However, the establishment of day care facilities stagnated in the 1950s, and did not see any real development until the mid 1960s when public subsidies increased substantially. Simultaneous to this, we find the growth of family day care facilities. The playschools and part-time groups initially had more places for children, and grew in number until the mid 1970s (figure 5). Thus the child care opportunities for children of stay-at-home mothers experienced high growth for a long period of time, and the family day care facilities played an important role in the Swedish public child care efforts.

Public policies concerning public child care were developed later in Norway than in Sweden. Although there were times when the topic was discussed, partly inspired by the debate and development in Sweden, it was only after World War II that the interest in public child care took hold. The child care facilities that were established were for the most part run by housewife associations and other private and social organisations. A system for public control and support only developed slowly. As late as in 1970, only 3 per cent of pre-school age children attended kindergarten.

Differences decreasing, but not gone

Laws on child care facilities were passed on both sides of the border in 1975, and the 1970s saw an increase in the commitment to the establishment of such facilities (figures 4 and 5). However, the growth in Sweden began earlier, and became stronger much sooner. The playschools and family day care facilities were for a long time an important part of the general supply of child care facilities, but their importance later diminished. In general terms, we can say that kindergartens in Sweden had been regarded as both beneficial for children and as a tool to enable mothers to take work outside the home.

Access to child care facilities in both countries has always been substantially better for the older children than the younger ones, and the number of part-time places has been high. The differences in the supply of child care facilities in Norway and Sweden have decreased over time, but access to places for the youngest children has always been far worse in Norway (figure 6). The access to places in child care facilities has improved in both countries, and is not just due to the establishment of new facilities. From the 1980s, parental leave covered the child care needs of the youngest children, and towards the end of the 1990s, the school age was lowered in Norway and a special pre-school programme was developed in Sweden.

“Shout it out - kindergartens for everyone”

Norway was a country of housewives for a longer period of time than Sweden. It has been said that women in Norway entered the workforce despite the lack of child care facilities. Child care was organised privately, and more women only worked part-time, thus making the two countries different. At the same time, the similarities are striking. There has been a lack of child care facilities in a period when more mothers are entering the workforce, and part-time work has become widespread, in both countries. “Gender equality light” is not just a Norwegian phenomenon.

The women’s movement of the 1970s in both countries emphasised that the level of women in the workforce was low in their country, and that there was a lack of places in kindergartens and good child care arrangements. “The right to work” was the cry of the women’s movement in Norway, while a typical title of a Swedish book was “Work - don’t exhaust yourself!: a book about double work today and historically - for the 6-hour work day in the future”. “We want sex, We want sex, We want six- (seks in Swedish and Norwegian) hour working days” they chanted during demonstrations in Sweden. The 6-hour working day was also a demand in the women and labour movement in Norway. “Shout it out - kindergartens for everyone”, Swedish women shouted - while on the other side of the border the cry was “Free day care for all children”. In both countries, women were unhappy with the opening hours of the day care facilities as these made it impossible for women to hold down a full-time job.

Personal leave to care for children - “Look to Sweden”

Historically, pregnancy and birth were not public concerns. At the end of the 19 ^{t h} century, in connection with the establishment of different forms of workers’ protection, laws were introduced both in Norway (1893) and Sweden (1900) that made it illegal for women to work during the first 4 to 6 weeks after giving birth. When the welfare state expanded, longer parental leave arrangements were introduced, the right to maternity leave was turned into law, and workers started receiving compensation when on sick leave. Sweden was the first of the two countries, and introduced the right to 12 weeks maternity leave in 1939, which was further expanded to six months in 1945. Income compensation however, arrived ten years later in 1955, which was around the same time Norway introduced the same arrangements, but only for 12 weeks after birth.

Improvements in the personal leave arrangements relating to birth and child care were put on the agenda when the rate of female workforce participation really started to grow. These kinds of arrangements are naturally of vital importance with regard to the workforce participation of mothers, and improving them was regarded as an important part of the policies relating to the equality between men and women, especially from the 1970s and onwards. The extension of the parental leave arrangements meant that there was a reserved time for the mother, in order to secure the woman and the child’s health, but that the extension could be shared between the mother and father. A more recent development is the arrangement where a part of the leave time (four weeks in Norway) is reserved for the father. Sweden was again first when it came to extending parental leave, and they also started at a higher level (figure 7). Paid parental leave («Föreldrapenningen«) was introduced in 1974, with the right to 90 per cent pay for 180 (working) days (60 days were reserved for the mother, the remainder to be shared between the parents). This grew steadily until the 480 days it constitutes today, albeit with varying cuts throughout the 1990s, and with an economic compensation of 80 per cent. The development in Norway was slower. The parental leave increased from 18 weeks (6 weeks for the mother) in 1977, where it remained for ten years. A gradual increase followed until 1993, when the entitlement to leave with full pay was 42 weeks (alternatively 52 weeks with 80 per cent pay), which still holds. Sweden thus has a more comprehensive arrangement than Norway, but both countries are in the forefront internationally in this area.

Cash payments don’t promote equality

Different forms of pay or cash payments for mothers rearing children have been discussed in both Norway and Sweden. In 1994, such an arrangement was passed in Sweden, but was never introduced, and disappeared after a short time when the social democrats returned to power. Four years later, a similar arrangement was established in Norway. Arnlaug Leira (2004) shows that it is mainly the political parties to the left that have supported the establishment of new kindergartens and increased parental leave, while the centre parties and the parties to the right have been pro-cash payment arrangements. The politics of care arrangements have been created through political alliances across the political spectrum, and that created in the 1990s saw the great emphasis on cash payments, which for the most part is used by mothers. This is an expression of the ambivalence in the Norwegian family- and equality policies in relation to the work participation of mothers. The idea of freedom of choice is winning more supporters in different contexts. It should additionally be mentioned that Finland also has a form of cash payment system, but at the same time a right to child care (as in Sweden). There is thus a greater degree of a real freedom of choice in Finland than in Norway (Bergman 2004). There is also a defined goal in Norway to provide a child care facility place for everyone who wants one, but this goal has yet to be fully reached.

Claiming cash payments for rearing young children in Norway has become very common; two out of three mothers with children at eligible ages for the cash payment (1-2-year olds) received them in 2003. Yet this arrangement is controversial, partly because places in kindergartens are highly sought after by mothers with children of all ages. Forty-eight per cent of mothers with children in the cash payment age range (in 2002) stated that they would prefer a kindergarten place, and the use of the cash payment benefit has decreased somewhat over the last few years.

Focus on men

Ever since the mid 1970s, the Nordic countries have been in the forefront of defining the goal that fathers should have their share of the parental leave in order to promote gender equality. More attention has been paid to men’s roles and men’s rights with regard to gender equality in the Nordic countries since the 1990s in particular. Reserving a share of the parental leave is considered especially important. Norway was the first to introduce a special quota for leave for fathers (one month) in 1993, and this is a good example of a policy that was quickly adopted in the neighbouring countries. One month for fathers was introduced in Sweden in 1995, and this was doubled in 2002. Discussions are ongoing in connection with extending the father’s quota in both countries.

Many fathers in both Norway and Sweden make use of the part of the parental leave that is reserved for them. However, few of them make use of the part of the leave that the parents can share, and which has been an option since the expansion of the parental leave in the 1970s. Furthermore, very few men claim the cash payment in order to stay at home with young children.

Swedish women entered politics early

Women’s participation in political life is also an indicator of the gender equality situation in a country, and has contributed to the introduction of female-friendly welfare policies (as shown for Norway by Hege Skjeie). At the same time, it has improved women’s opportunities and standing in the workforce. Compared to other countries, there was an early political mobilisation of women with regard to the parliamentary system in the Nordic countries. Norway gave women full voting rights in 1913, and was the first sovereign state to do so - six years before Sweden. After voting rights were achieved, a long process of getting more women elected into parliament and onto the government began (figures 8 and 9). Sweden was ahead of Norway for a long period of time, but only after World War II did either of the parliaments consist of more than 10 per cent women. Until the 1970s, the proportion of women in parliament grew slowly, albeit somewhat faster in Sweden than in Norway.

However, at this time, things began to change rapidly in Norway. The 1970s became the decade of women’s march into parliament and government in Norway. In 1981, the country got its first female prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who in 1986 created a world sensation by appointing eight women out of 18 ministers. Women’s participation in politics has meant increasing emphasis on public arrangements for child care in both countries. Women’s entry into government was probably one reason why parental leave arrangements quickly improved in the late 1980s; the decade when the proportion of women in the Norwegian parliament grew rapidly.

In the 1990s, Sweden left Norway behind somewhat. In the 2002 election, 43 per cent of the members of the Swedish parliament (Riksdagen) were women, whereas the proportion of women elected to the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget) in the 2001 election, was only 36 per cent. Since 1986, the proportion of women in the Norwegian government has never been below 42 per cent, partly due to the requirements of the 1988 Equality Act (at least 40 per cent of each gender). At the same time, the proportion of women in the Swedish government has been 50 per cent over the past years. Overall, women’s representation in both the legislative and executive branches of government has been somewhat higher in Sweden than in Norway.

More equal, but not completely

In general, we can say that both Norway and Sweden have undergone a similar development. The pace has differed at times, but we seem to be heading towards convergence in many areas. The degree of women’s participation in the workforce has become pretty similar, even though more Norwegian women work part-time than their Swedish counterparts. Sweden also has more women in parliament and government than Norway does. Public support and responsibility for child care have become quite extensive in both countries. Access to public child care is still better in Sweden, even though Norway is quickly catching up. Support for parents’ ability to take care of their own children when they are small, in the form of parental leave arrangements, parts of which are reserved for the father, has become increasingly comprehensive, even more so in Sweden than in Norway. Efforts to improve parental leave arrangements and access to kindergartens and other child care facilities have been important tools in gender equality policies. The introduction of the cash payment in Norway, however, was not aimed at promoting gender equality, and it does not seem to do so either. On this point, Norway and Sweden differ, but it is worthwhile noting that a cash payment is being discussed in Sweden, and that it exists in a different form in Finland.

(1) This article was published in Norwegian on 7 March 2005: Eeg-Henriksen, F. (2005): Ulike som to dråper vann, in Hundre års ensomhet? Norge og Sverige 1905-2005, Statistiske analyser nr. 69, Statistics Norway, http://www.ssb.no/magasinet/norge_sverige/art-2005-03-07-01.html

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