Jobba jämställt? Om föreställningar och verklighet på ett mindre företag

by Lundin, Sarah

There’s a well-known discrepancy between gender equality as an ideal and as a practice in the Swedish labour market. With a gender knowledge showing how women’s work is valued less than men’s, that women are given fewer possibilities to maintain a career as well as given unequal wages for equal work, this presentation will take a closer look at a small Swedish company. Through a questionnaire among the salaried employees, questions regarding whether gender seems to have an impact on wages and possibilities to advance are being answered among others. The results are indicating a gender segregation, horizontal as well as vertical, partly made visible through gender marked occupations and the fact that the company seems to lean on a male structure of the organization. But the employer also has potential when it comes to gender equality, for instance the recruitment is fairly equal in numbers. In a wider perspective the single study is explained on the basis of gender studies perspective on gender equality. The results are discussed taking a perspective on gender relations as variable over time, but with a knowledge that the division of labour between the sexes constantly being reconstructed, as a starting point. In order to acknowledge the structural mechanisms that constantly keeps recreating women’s lower wages and possibilities to achieve a career in comparison to men; this paper claims that efficient work for gender equality demands scientific knowledge about how power and gender interacts in society at large.