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Maria Stanfors. Photo.

Maria Stanfors

Professor

Maria Stanfors. Photo.

Women in a changing economy: the misleading tale of participation rates in a historical perspective

Author

  • Maria Stanfors

Summary, in English

In this article I focus on women's advancement in the Swedish labour market during more than a century. By applying a long-term perspective I give the historical background to what is commonly seen as a success story. By reassessing census and labour force survey data I show that participation rates may tell a misleading tale not only for the past but also for the present. In a long-term perspective, Sweden does not stand out as a country with high female labour force participation rates. It was not until the mid-1960s that market work came to play a larger part of women's life, since young women worked until they had children and older married women returned to the labour force after having raised a family. During the late 1960s and the 1970s, women with children under the age of seven became an integrated part of the labour force. It seemed as if welfare reforms supported women's market work in an unprecedented way; gender differences in labour force participation decreased and became very small. A reassessment of labour force participation rates together with alternative measures of market work such as at-work and market-hours rates show that similarly to how they underestimate women's market work and contributions to production during the early decades of the twentieth century, they overestimate women's market work at the end of the century, neglecting the extent to which reproductive responsibilities still interfere with women's paid work through absence and part-time work.

Department/s

  • Centre for Economic Demography
  • Department of Economic History

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

513-536

Publication/Series

The History of the Family

Volume

19

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Economic History

Keywords

  • gender labour force participation
  • census data
  • survey data
  • Sweden

Status

Published

Project

  • The Emergence of Wage Discrimination
  • Lön efter möda eller lön efter kön? Om betydelsen av produktivitet, konkurrens och kontrakt för lönediskriminering
  • The Emergence of Wage Discrimination: Gender wage differentials before the modern labor market (IFAU)
  • The Emergence of Wage Discrimination: Gender wage differentials before the modern labor market (VR)

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1873-5398