Tensions between welfare services and competitiveness: public sector wages in competitive corporatism and the social democratic gender regime

National competitiveness plays a prominent role in many countries’ politics. As a small, export-driven economy, national competitiveness has gained a dominant role in policies concerning labour markets, the public economy and welfare services in Finland. However, Finland also has a relatively strong and popular welfare state and a highly unionised workforce, which are both usually understood as advantageous for gender equality but as a burden on competitiveness. This chapter focuses on the historical relationship between national competitiveness and the public sector in Finland. This relationship will be analysed through the concept of a social democratic gender regime, which can be used to describe how gender relations are organised. Particular attention is paid to the establishment of a social democratic gender, in which the role of the state as an employer of women is large and gender relations are conditioned by the needs of the state.