Sweden is the best country in the world for women — here's why
Sweden is no stranger to topping global rankings, whether it's
for excellence in
raising kids,
environmental friendliness, or
doing good for others.
The latest: Sweden was recently
named the best country in the world for women by BAV
Consulting and UPenn's Wharton School of Business.
If you ask Asa Regner, Sweden's minister for gender equality,
she'll say the country didn't achieve such a feat by accident. It
took decades of advocating on behalf of women's rights and
putting systems in place in the federal government to support
women in the workplace and in life.
Regner, the minister since 2014, says a few big factors have
contributed to the ongoing success.
Individual taxation
If there's a hallmark of the Nordic model of governance, it's
income tax. The rates are very high. But Regner says Sweden's
success with empowering women may come largely down to
how people are taxed.
"A very dry and technical thing is the individual-based
taxation," she tells Business Insider. Married couples in Sweden
don't file joint tax returns; since 1971, they've filed
separately. Regardless of whether you're single or married,
individual people receive social security benefits based on their
needs, she says, not their family's collective needs.
"We target individuals regardless of gender to take up paid
work," Regner says. "And I think that that kind of thinking, and
that we did all of that in the seventies and are still very
conscious of that, creates a positive cycle that gets politicians
to do things."
Parental leave
Sweden has
the most generous parental leave policy in the world. Parents
get 480 days to share — paid out at 80% of their salaries — which
they can use until the child turns 8. In addition, fathers get 90
of those days reserved just for them.
The policy has enabled Swedes to cultivate a work-life balance
like few other countries can. Families can divide their time
between the office and their home with ease, and new mothers in
particular enjoy having ample time with their newborns.
A great
deal of research says this kind of setup is ideal for
bringing women into the workforce.
Often, moms pay a penalty for working. They're either hired less
because employers think they'll leave to have kids, or they have
trouble keeping their old wages once they come back from
maternity leave.
Sweden eliminates those pressures — for both parents, Regner
says. Lately, one of her biggest missions has been to increase
how much paternity leave dads take. In 2014, they took just 25% of the
480 days, while moms took 75%.
Regner's goal is to get the ratio closer to 50-50.
Company audits
Regner's ongoing quest is to ensure companies stick to Swedish
law that mandates equal pay for equal work.
In 2008, the country signed the
Swedish Discrimination Act, which requires companies of 25 or
more employees to issues surveys every year analyzing pay
differences between men and women. Companies with big differences
between genders who don't take steps to close the gap risk paying
fines.
This has helped to a large extent, Regner says. What's trickier
is changing how work often performed by women — nursing, elderly
care — is valued in society. That's the big attitudinal
difference she'd like to resolve.
So far, it's involved funneling government funds to those
industries where women's work is undervalued relative to men.
Over time, she'd like vital areas of work to get more recognition
from business leaders who pay people's salaries.
Regner also says immigration has become a new challenge. In 2015,
an influx of Syrian and Afghani migrants entered the country,
many of whom grew up learning different values about gender
roles. Education — about women's rights, violence prevention, and
the country's expectations of its citizens — all have helped so
far, Regner says. But there is still a ways to go.
But while Regner and her peers debate how to level the playing
field even further, many other countries are still struggling to
offer basic services, such as mandatory parental leave and equal
pay.
Even Sweden's problems are the best in the world.
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Sweden is the best country in the world for women — here's why
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