IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v11y1997i1p83-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Scandinavian Welfare State Model: The Impact of the Public Sector on Segregation and Gender Equality

Author

Listed:
  • Marianne Nordli Hansen

    (Department of Sociology of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Norway)

Abstract

Comparative studies of sex segregation indicate that the levels in the Scandinavian countries are high, especially in Norway. Observers tend to link this to various aspects of the social democratic welfare state. This article examines the thesis that the public sector in the Scandinavian welfare state model is an attractive employer for women, with regard to both working conditions and wages. The data consist of a sample from the 1990 Norwegian population census of men and women between the age of 40 and 45. The economic consequences of the same occupational choices are shown to vary for men and women. The men have greater earnings advantages if they choose occupations in the private sector with low proportions of women. The earnings advantages for women in such occupations, compared to women in public sector occupations, are far lower. Further, the earnings of women in private sector male-dominated occupations are influenced by their childcare responsibilities. The higher the childcare responsibilities, the lower the earnings. No effects of childcare responsibilities are found among women in public sector occupations with large proportions of men. These findings thus indicate that the size and the organisation of the public sector in Scandinavia contributes to sex segregation in the labour market.

Suggested Citation

  • Marianne Nordli Hansen, 1997. "The Scandinavian Welfare State Model: The Impact of the Public Sector on Segregation and Gender Equality," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 11(1), pages 83-99, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:11:y:1997:i:1:p:83-99
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017097111005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017097111005
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017097111005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacob Mincer & Solomon Polachek, 1974. "Family Investments in Human Capital: Earnings of Women," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 76-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Paula England, 1982. "The Failure of Human Capital Theory to Explain Occupational Sex Segregation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(3), pages 358-370.
    3. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    4. Christina Jonung & Inga Persson, 1993. "Women and Market Work: The Misleading Tale of Participation Rates in International Comparisons," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 7(2), pages 259-274, June.
    5. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1992. "The Gender Earnings Gap: Learning from International Comparisons," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 533-538, May.
    6. Polachek, Solomon William, 1981. "Occupational Self-Selection: A Human Capital Approach to Sex Differences in Occupational Structure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(1), pages 60-69, February.
    7. Óystein Kravdal, 1992. "Forgone labor participation and earning due to childbearing among Norwegian women," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(4), pages 545-563, November.
    8. Jacob Mincer & Haim Ofek, 1982. "Interrupted Work Careers: Depreciation and Restoration of Human Capital," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 17(1), pages 3-24.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moshe Semyonov & Hadas Mandel, 2003. "The Prevalence of Welfare State Policies and Gender Socioeconomic Inequality: A Comparative Analysis," LIS Working papers 346, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    3. Tanja Hethey & Margarita Est vez-Abe, 2008. "How Policies Affect Women's Economic Position within the Family: Labor Market Institutions and Wives' Contribution to Household Income," LIS Working papers 505, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Hadas Mandel & Haya Stier, 2003. "Inequality in the Family: The Institutional Aspects of Wives Earning Dependency," LIS Working papers 359, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Solomon W. Polachek & Jun Xiang, 2009. "The Gender Pay Gap across Countries: A Human Capital Approach," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 227, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Polachek, Solomon W., 2008. "Earnings Over the Life Cycle: The Mincer Earnings Function and Its Applications," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 165-272, April.
    3. Molina, José Alberto & Montuenga, Víctor M., 2008. "The Motherhood Wage Penalty in a Mediterranean Country: The Case of Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 3574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Inés P. Murillo, 2011. "Human capital obsolescence: some evidence for Spain," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(4), pages 426-445, July.
    5. Johnsen, Julian & Ku, Hyejin, 2020. "Competition and Career Advancement: The Hidden Costs of Paid Leave," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    6. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    7. Boll Christina & Rossen Anja & Wolf André, 2017. "The EU Gender Earnings Gap: Job Segregation and Working Time as Driving Factors," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 237(5), pages 407-452, October.
    8. Görlich, Dennis & De Grip, Andries, 2007. "Human capital depreciation during family-related career interruptions in male and female occupations," Kiel Working Papers 1379, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Astrid Kunze, 2017. "Types of absence from work and wages of young workers with apprenticeship training," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 51(1), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Robert Fiorentine, 1993. "Theories of Gender Stratification," Rationality and Society, , vol. 5(3), pages 341-366, July.
    11. Blau Francine D & Kahn Lawrence M, 2007. "The Gender Pay Gap," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 4(4), pages 1-6, June.
    12. John Raisian & Michael R. Ward & Finis Welch, 1986. "Pay Equity And Comparable Worth," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 4(2), pages 4-20, April.
    13. Sami Napari, 2008. "The Early‐career Gender Wage Gap among University Graduates in the Finnish Private Sector," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(4), pages 697-733, December.
    14. Philippe Adair & Hassiba Gherbi, 2020. "The Youth Gender gap in North Africa: Income differentials and Informal Employment," Erudite Working Paper 2020-06, Erudite.
    15. Astrid Kunze, 2008. "Gender wage gap studies: consistency and decomposition," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 63-76, August.
    16. Alan Manning & Joanna Swaffield, 2008. "The gender gap in early-career wage growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 983-1024, July.
    17. Christina Boll & Malte Jahn & Andreas Lagemann, 2017. "The gender lifetime earnings gap—exploring gendered pay from the life course perspective," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 25(1), pages 1-53, March.
    18. Bowlus, Audra J, 1997. "A Search Interpretation of Male-Female Wage Differentials," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(4), pages 625-657, October.
    19. Guisinger Amy Y. & Jackson Laura E. & Owyang Michael T., 2024. "Age and gender differentials in unemployment and hysteresis," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 28(4), pages 567-581.
    20. Solomon Polachek, 2003. "Mincer's Overtaking Point and the Life Cycle Earnings Distribution," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 273-304, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:11:y:1997:i:1:p:83-99. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.