Structured by gender : patterns of sex segregation in the Swedish labour market : historical and cross-national comparisons

Abstract: The main purpose of this thesis is to study changes in the level of sex segregation in the Swedish labour market during the 20th century.The thesis includes four empirical chapters. Chapter 2 studies trends in sex segregation by industry and market position in the Swedish labour market between 1890 and 1990. The analyses demonstrate that the Swedish labour market has in overall terms become relatively less sex segregated, both by industry and by market position, since the turn of the century. Chapter 3 focuses on changes in the level of sex segregation in the Swedish labour market since the late 1960s. However, unlike the previous chapter, the data used here is on a more detailed occupational level.Chapter 4 focuses, unlike the above chapters, on the supply side of female labour force participation and allocation. The aim is to examine why young women end up in male-dominated or sex-integrated occupations rather than female-dominated ones with regard to their upbringing, their educational attainment, and family responsibility.Chapter 5 is a comparative analysis of cross-national variation in sex segregation. The results indicate that, given differences in sex composition and occupational structure, the countries studied here produce fairly similar segregation profiles that are markedly structured by gender. The thesis is concluded by a discussion of how to interpret the principal findings in terms of stability or change over time, as well as in terms of similarity and variability between countries