The Nordic countries are widely viewed to provide the blue-print for “gender-equalizing work-family reconciliation policies.” Most important are affordable and universally available child-care and pre-school for children ages 1-6. The Nordic countries also excel in offering a work life with lower pressures on putting in endless hours. This makes combining family and career easier than in many other countries. The largest obstacle to gender equality is the so-called motherhood penalty where women upon becoming mothers lose out careerwise. With the extensive family policies and less greedy workplaces, the Nordic countries should thus be harbingers of what should be possible to achieve with respect to gender equality in the labor market by eradicating the motherhood penalty.
Over a ten-year period 2001-2010 the so-called motherhood penalty was eradicated in Norway and was turned into a motherhood premium. Mothers gained careerwise relative childless women. This in turn was due mainly to a decrease in hours worked by childless women. Within the life courses of women, the costs of motherhood also declined dramatically over a 50-year period 1970-2020. But at the same time, fathers gained even more. The net result was no progress in gender equality. The main reason for the gaps in hourly wages, monthly income, and annual income between mothers and fathers was differences in hours worked.
Most remarkable are the differences at the top: the glass ceiling or the top 1 percent of earners. While the Nordic countries lead in family policies and less greedy workplaces, the U.S. fails in both, with the least developed family policies and the greediest workplaces. But when it comes to success of women at the top, both the Nordic countries and the U.S. are the laggards, ranking at the bottom among several rich countries in the percent female among the top 1 percent earners. This is the Norwegian and Nordic gender equality paradox: Both the vanguards and the laggards in family policies and family-friendly workplaces remain the laggards in gender equality at the top.
Program
Introduction by Pro-Rector Åse Gornitzka
Lecture by Trond Petersen - "The Nordics' victorious family policies, but stagnant gender equality"
Comments by Cathrine Holst, professor in Philosophy of Science and Democracy, UiO and professor II CORE - Centre for Research on Gender Equality, Institute for Social Research and Mari Teigen, research professor and head of CORE – Centre for Research on Gender Equality, Institute for Social Research.
Questions from and discussions with the audience
Reception with refreshments outside the auditorium will follow immediately after. Please register before 26 August if you would like to attend: Registration form.
Bio
Petersen is an internationally renowned sociologist and has collaborated extensively with the University of Oslo. Petersen’s research has made significant contributions to the fields of social inequality, organizational studies, and quantitative methods. His extensive work has delved into the role of employer discrimination in creating disparities in wages, employment, and promotions between men and women, as well as the impact of family adjustments on these inequalities.
Petersen is a professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and the Haas School of Business and is the Associate Executive Dean, College of Letters & Science, at the University of California, Berkeley. Petersen has previously held a professorships at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oslo and Harvard University.