Are there joint Nordic strategies and measures for improving the gender balance in academia? And are the Nordic countries a step closer to gender balance in research? These are a few of the questions Solveig Bergman sought to answer in the report she wrote on commission from the Committee for Gender Balance in Research (the KIF Committee).

“The Nordic region excels in one area only – that is, the leadership of the national research councils and the institutional leadership in academia. And this is mainly due to quota provisions!”

“The Nordic countries have more women rectors and more women on the boards of the national research councils compared with other European countries,” says Bergman, who is a researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies.

“The provisions on gender quotas for government-appointed bodies have been instrumental in increasing female representation on the boards of the Nordic research councils. The rules requiring 40 percent representation of each gender have been crucial,” she notes.

Iceland, Finland and Norway require that at least 40 percent of both genders are represented in public committees and commissions. In practice, the same principle is followed in Sweden, while Denmark requires balanced gender composition but does not specify a percentage distribution.

Both research and politics

The new report The Nordic region – a step closer to gender balance in research? compiles what we know about legislation, research, statistics and measures, and it makes recommendations as well. The target groups are both the research sector and the gender equality sector.

“The topic of gender balance in academia often falls between two stools – research and gender equality. For us it’s important that politicians and bureaucrats from both sectors are the report’s main target groups,” Bergman emphasizes.

She hopes the report will result in more cooperation at the Nordic level.

“This is a long-awaited report. There is a need for Nordic cooperation and gender equality measures at the Nordic level, as well as at the European and international levels. Plus, Nordic cooperation can give a boost to the Nordic countries that lag behind the others,” she explains.

Scandinavian variation

The report shows that Norway and Sweden are unique; they are clearly the best in implementing gender equality measures in academia.

“But although Norway and Sweden have done the most with special measures to improve the gender balance, Finland is the country in the Nordic region with the most women in higher research positions,” says Bergman.

“Also, in a historic perspective Norway and Sweden have had a more positive attitude towards quotas and other women-specific measures than Finland. Despite this, Finland has long had the highest percentage of women professors in the Nordic region.”

Denmark has also had more faith in attitudinal change and less acceptance of specific initiatives. The situation for professors in Denmark is very imbalanced, with 85 percent men and 15 percent women.

“By the same token, I’m pleasantly surprised by Denmark. They have more good measures than you would think, both nationally and at the educational institutions.”

Iceland and Finland are best in the class

Recent figures show that Iceland, along with Finland, is now the Nordic country with the highest percentage of women professors in the Nordic region.

“Despite the small numbers that tend to inflate percentages, the trend on Iceland is interesting nonetheless,” says Bergman.

To gain a broader picture, it is also important to look at various recruitment patterns in the different countries, according to Bergman. For instance, the total number of professors varies widely and not all countries have a promotion system like Norway’s. In Norway there are two ways to become a professor, either by getting hired in a professor position or by being promoted to the professor level in a position the person already holds.

Not only numbers, but structures

The report also has a chapter on research policy reforms. Autonomy, excellence, internationalisation and innovation are a few of the topics touched on in the report.

“Often reports on gender balance and gender equality in academia only discuss the quantitative distribution of positions, but we believe it’s important to look more at structural factors such as research policy reforms and new trends that are now making headway in academia,” Bergman continues.

Due to the new focus areas, gender equality efforts in academia have become more diverse and more complex. According to the report, incorporating a gender equality perspective when new areas are introduced, such as the excellence initiatives, innovation or internationalization, has proven to be a challenge. And although gender equality is a stated objective in academia in the Nordic countries, there are few comprehensive studies of university and research policy in a gender equality perspective.

EU better than the Nordic region

Compared with the pan-Nordic level, Bergman believes that the EU has a longer tradition of discussing structural factors and difficulties that impede gender equality in research – even though the individual Nordic countries have been talking about the issue for a long time.

“One of the main points in the report is that the joint Nordic research and gender equality policy under the Nordic Council of Ministers has not addressed these issues – something that the EU has done.”

“Take the centres of excellence, for example. These centres are given high priority within the EU and the Nordic region, but they have a lower percentage of women than in academia at large. Why is this?” Bergman asks.

The report refers to a survey of the Research Council of Norway’s Outstanding Young Investigators scheme (YFF), the Centres of Excellence scheme (SFF) and the Centres for Research-based Innovation scheme (SFI). The survey found that clarifying the expectations of the applicants and taking gender equality into account in the application process may have a positive impact on the gender distribution of the applicants and those selected to receive funding.

“However, raising awareness and clarifying expectations is only one answer. There is far too little research on excellence. Excellence policy entails many different things, such as how research activity is organised and which publication patterns are given priority. And all of this must also be studied in a gender and gender equality perspective,” says Bergman.

”This issue has not been discussed enough at the Nordic level, while the EU has worked with it since the report Gender and Excellence in the Making was released in 2004.”

Natural science as the ideal

Hierarchies in research is another topic that should be discussed in the Nordic region, according to Bergman.

“Are the natural sciences still idealised in the research sector? What happens then to the humanities and social sciences? If a centre in the social sciences or humanities is granted excellence status, does it have to resemble the MST subjects, such as language technology?” Bergman asks.

“Some reports conclude that the excellence initiatives have been a setback for gender equality, but we don’t have all the answers. More research is needed, both on national and Nordic research initiatives,” she states.

According to Bergman, it is important to remember that gender equality and gender balance deals not only with women and men, but also with subjects, academic hierarchies, scientific content and priorities.

“What happens with the interpretive humanities and social sciences in a research world with excellence initiatives where the natural sciences are held up as the ideal?” she asks.

By: Kristin Auckland
Translated by: Connie Stultz
The source of the article is Kilden, Information Centre for Gender Research in Norway
Download the report here

‘Sweden, Norway and Finland follow a Nordic model which means that their equality policies are characterised by a relatively strong legislative and institutional anchoring. Denmark differs in having a less robust policy,’ says Mari Teigen, a sociologist and research leader at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo.

Maria Carbin is a researcher at Umeå University and was a member of the research team for the EU-project Quing; Quality in Gender and Equality Policies, which lasted from 2006 to 2011. She has, among other things, analysed Danish policy documents concerning equality.

‘The Danish equal opportunities policy more resembles the form that is adopted in the rest of Europe. It has been accorded a low priority status and action that has been taken has been more often in response to directives from the EU and UN than arising out of Denmark’s own political agenda.’

It was, for instance, only after the EU Commission had directed criticism at Denmark that, in 2011, the Danish Institute for Human Rights was commissioned to promote equality between the sexes. Until then there was no independent authority responsible for this issue.

Denmark lacks a strong women’s movement

Maria Carbin considers that the issue of gender has not been problematised in Denmark in the same way as it has, for instance, in Sweden. The issue of feminism occupies a minor position in the debate and concepts such as that of a gender power system do not exist.

‘A weak women’s movement and the fact that Danish political parties have not had any women’s organisations since the 1970s may also have contributed to the fact that women’s issues are not placed high on the agenda,’ says Maria Carbin.

The Quing project and Maria Carbin’s research were completed before the change of government in 2011 when the Social Democratic Party came to power in Denmark and hopes were raised for a more active equal opportunities policy.

Karen Sjørup, who does research on equality issues, among other things, at Roskilde University, feels that such hopes have not been fulfilled.

‘We have a new minister for gender equality who is also responsible for the church. So far he has been very taken up with the issue of same-sex marriages and the situation of men, but apart from that not very much has happened.’

A high degree of employment among women and an extensive childcare system contributes to the fact that Denmark is often ranked highly in international comparisons of gender equality. Highly educated women are beginning to be seen in the higher echelons of trade and industry, but Karen Sjørup feels that this gives a misleading picture of the women’s situation on the labour market.

‘Most women are low-paid and do not have a university education. There is also a wage gap between women and men due to the fact that professions dominated by women are less valued than the traditionally male professions. The government does nothing to alleviate that gap and it’s a factor that does not register in international rankings either.’

Karen Sjørup confirms that Denmark lacks a strong women’s movement, but she speaks of several active networks which are pressing for change and working on concrete projects to promote equality.

‘These networks are generally ignored by the government and the projects receive no funding from the state,’ she says.

The Icelandic ‘glass rock’

In Iceland an increased number of women entered politics in the wake of the economic collapse. In the election of 2009 the share of women in the Icelandic parliament – the Althing – increased from 32 to 43 per cent and Iceland acquired a woman prime minister for the first time.

Thorgerdur Einarsdóttir, who is Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Iceland finds that it is to some extent the economic crisis, but above all the election victory of the Social Democrats and the Left-Green Movement, which explains just why this happened in 2009.

As in other countries, there is a clear tendency for the red-green parties to have more women in their lists than it is for the bourgeois parties. After the resurgence of the bourgeois parties in the most recent election, in 2013, the proportion of women in the Althing has somewhat decreased.

The state of women’s representation in politics explains why over the past four years Iceland has topped the rankings in the Global Gender Gap, which measures the levels of equal opportunities in 134 countries. However, Thorgerdur Einarsdóttir’s research shows that even if women have formally obtained more power the process is ambiguous.

‘Far-reaching liberalisation in Iceland has led to an equality paradox. At the same time as the women have obtained more visibility in public life, a relocation of power has taken place from politics to the market, which means that the level of influence they actually have has decreased.

Icelandic researchers also talk about ‘the glass rock’, a term which implies that women acquire high positions in politics and working life when times are particularly hard and they are thus exposed to a greater risk of failure.

‘In the wake of the economic collapse a woman was elected prime minister and was given the difficult task of reorganising the economy. However, after one term she no longer has the confidence of the voters,’ Thorgerdur Einarsdóttir says.

She says that the equality issues have not been given any space at all within this year’s election campaign, although the outgoing red-green government had put in place a wide range of policies aiming at increasing equal opportunities for women. An integration of equal opportunities into the state budget, prohibitions against strip clubs, an Act of Parliament on the sex trade in accordance with the Swedish model, as well as gender quotas on boards of directors according to the Norwegian model are some of these.

‘If you wanted to be critical you could say that these are ultimately just symbolic issues. They are measures which have not been expensive to put in place and which, in the absence of sanctions, unfortunately are not always being followed,’ Thorgerdur Einarsdóttir says.

Good policies – needing implementation

Mari Teigen in Oslo is one of twelve researchers who have been working on an investigation into equal opportunities policies in Norway which has received much attention and which has resulted in the reports A Structure for Equality 2011 and Policies for Equality 2012.

The mandate of the investigation has been extensive, with a focus on gender, class and ethnicity. Mari Teigen considers that the work has been characterised by innovative thinking in both its analyses and proposals for implementation.

‘The most important conclusion is that the integration of gender and social equality does not work in the way it has been thought to. Many more international studies point in the same direction. The policies might be good but the implementation remains inadequate.

When the investigation was submitted its chair Hege Skjeie, a professor at Oslo University, described the integration of gender and social equality as ‘the strategy of the powerless’. By this he means that the strategy is based on the expectation that people who do not themselves necessarily possess any competence in matters of equality apply an equal opportunities perspective to anything they do. Moreover, the issues of equal opportunities constantly have to compete with the other issues for which the respective authority or administration is responsible.

In order to alleviate the deficiencies in implementation there is a need for more effective guidance in relation to equal opportunities policies.
‘We propose that the ministry responsible for issues of gender and social equality is backed up by an authority, a regional directorate, which distributes funding and is given an overarching national responsibility,’ says Mari Teigen.

The investigation acknowledges considerable deficiencies when it comes to equal opportunities in politics, the educational system and working life, and it also focuses attention on women’s need for protection against assault and violence. Concrete measures are proposed in every field.

‘We have made a point of putting forward measures which have not been tested before,’ Mari Teigen says.

The twelve researchers of the investigation had no links with interested parties in the labour market. This, finds Mari Teigen, enabled them to formulate appropriate measures.

At the same time it implies that the parties do not have a duty to implement the measures.

‘The Swedish Delegation for Gender Equality in Working Life is at an advantage here. It has a broader composition and the work has been established more effectively right from the beginning.

The articles source is magazine Genus number 1/2013.

Reserving some of the parental leave period for the father is currently a hot topic in all Nordic countries. The Norwegian right wing has announced that they will do away with the ‘daddy quota’ if they win the election, and in Denmark the government’s promise to introduce the policy was recently put off.

‘We’re very concerned about the political signals from the right wing. The large proportion of women in the labour market is a competitive advantage for Norway, and if the daddy quota is abolished, the female talent pool in the labour market may shrink,’ says Kristina Jullum Hagen from the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), Norway’s major organisation for employers and the leading business lobby. Norway has just decided to increase the daddy quota to 14 of 58 weeks, yet there is a general election in September and the right wing has announced that they want to abolish the daddy quota. The families should be free to decide how to split the parental leave, they say.

The earmarking policy is being discussed in Denmark, too. The centre-left government consisting of the Social Democrats, the Socialist People’s Party and the Danish Social-Liberal Party has forwarded the earmarking issue to a working group for further discussion. The quota policy was initially part of the government agreement, but at this point the outcome is uncertain.

‘The parental leave legislation has become a highly politicised issue. In Denmark in particular, but also in the other Nordic countries. Should there only be a mummy quota, or should fathers be given the same treatment? Should the state regulate family life to achieve a more gender-equal society? Parental leave legislation touches upon some major questions related to parenthood and parents’ care and breadwinning responsibilities, so it only makes sense that opponents and supporters of earmarked parental leave react so strongly,’ says Anette Borchorst, professor in political science at Aalborg University.

5-month daddy quota

Gender equality supporters in the Nordic countries like to use Iceland as a good example. Since the year 2000, the country has had three months of the parental leave reserved for the father and three months for the mother. This year Iceland decided to extend the parental leave period by three months, with five months reserved for the father, five months reserved for the mother and two months for the family to decide about. The extension was supported unanimously by the Icelandic parliament and will go into effect in 2016.

‘In Iceland we’re very proud of being one of the most gender-equal countries in the world. Our parental leave legislation was poor prior to 2000. When we finally decided to make new rules, it was only natural to split the leave equally between men and women,’ says Ingólfur V. Gislason, Icelandic senior lecturer in sociology. He feels that the splitting of parental leave into three parts has been crucial to Icelandic family life. ‘Fathers have really used their quota. They have become closer to their children than in the past.’

Maternal leave

Supporters of generous parental leave rules in the Nordic countries use two main arguments: More time off increases the presence of fathers and helps women focus more on working life. Finland currently has a daddy quota of six weeks and three weeks of paternity leave immediately after the birth of a child. However, parts of the political left wing and The Greens have since 2006 promoted a model with six months reserved for the father, six months reserved for the mother and six months that the family can share.

‘The emphasis on the role of the mother is stronger in Finland than in other Nordic countries. Strong voices in the Finnish debate claim that children should be with their mothers until age three. A daddy quota without an extension of the total parental leave period would be considered a reduction of the maternal leave, so such a policy would never gain broad support’, says Johanna Lammi-Taskula, researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland.

Historical roots

The way parental leave has been shared in the Nordic countries has historical roots, says Sofie Cedstrand, analyst at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency whose PhD thesis analysed the historical processes that led to the different rules for parental leave in Denmark and Sweden.

‘In the 1970s, the Danish gender equality debate was just as intense as in Sweden, and there was a focus in both places on helping women enter the labour market. But in Denmark there was a widespread notion about protecting women and their special conditions. Swedish gender equality supporters managed to reformulate the gender equality discussion to an issue of gender neutrality and individual rights for both fathers and mothers, which made it possible for Sweden to introduce paternal leave as the first country in the world,’ says Cedstrand, who sees the same pattern in the Danish debate today.

‘In 2001, Denmark extended the parental leave period and also removed the four-week paternal leave requirement. But they didn’t touch the 14-week mummy quota. I see that as a remnant of the 1970s gender debate,’ says Cedstrand.

Consequences

Nina Smith, professor in economics at Aarhus University, points to significant gender-related consequences of this attitude. In her most recent study, she found a dramatic effect of Danish parental leave, which is mainly taken by women.
‘Danish women are subject to collective punishment. They are basically considered inferior labour, and less resources are invested in them. The opposite is true for men. There are no collective expectations that family life will affect a man’s career. And men are severely punished if they insist on going on paternal leave, as it makes them look unmotivated in the eyes of their employers,’ she explains.

This is the very reason Kristina Jullum Hagen from the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) is concerned about the right wing’s intention to abolish the daddy quota if they win the election. ‘We’re afraid it will give Norway the same pattern as in Denmark. It will throw us back to a situation where women have to carry the burden of parenthood. We are concerned it will lead to reduced job opportunities and less access to talent, since it will give highly qualified women a weaker connection to the labour market.’

Johanne Mygind, freelance writer nikk@nikk.gu.se

Part-time work is common in the Nordic countries, especially among women. About 41 per cent of all employed Norwegian women work part-time, and part-time work is common in female-dominated occupations. The situation is similar in the other Nordic countries – the only exception is Finland, where it is more common that women work full-time.

As part of the Swedish chairmanship in the Nordic Council of Ministers, the resource and information centre Nordic Information on Gender – NIKK – has been commissioned to conduct a Nordic study of the short- and long-term consequences of part-time work. NIKK will explore the economic effects of part-time work for employees and their families, with an emphasis on how it affects gender equality. Besides salary differences, the study will also focus on pensions and public social security benefits. Since many part-time workers share family financial responsibilities with a partner, the study will look at incomes at both the individual and family levels. What happens in cases of separation or the partner’s death will also be studied.

Marianne Sundström, professor in labour market economics at Stockholm University, will conduct the study together with Master’s student Alma Lanninger Wennemo. The project will have a reference group consisting of Helle Holt, senior researcher at the Danish National Research of Social Research in Denmark, Cathrine Egeland, research director at the Work Research Institute in Norway, Johanna Lammi-Taskula, senior researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland, and Guðbjörg Linda Rafnsdóttir, professor in sociology at the University of Iceland. The researchers will meet at a workshop in Gothenburg on 1 March. A pre-study has been completed by MA Sandra Engelbrecht.

The results of the study will be presented at a Nordic conference arranged by NIKK in cooperation with the Swedish chairmanship in the Nordic Council of Ministers on 22 October in Stockholm. The study will also be presented at the NIKK’s website and in various publications.

Questions can be directed to Bosse Parbring, who is coordinating the project.
Email: bosse.parbring@genus.se
Tel. +46 (0)31 786 92 30