The gap between men’s and women’s wages is almost ten percent in Sweden today. A woman earns an average of SEK 32,000 a month according to Statistics Sweden’s salary statistics – while men’s average salary is SEK 34,500 a month.
The biggest explanation is that men and women choose different professions and that these are valued differently.
But even in traditionally male occupations, women earn less. Inspired by her brothers, Michaela Magnusson became a painter, and today she wonders why women in the industry earn less than their male colleagues.
– Gender does not determine whether you are a good painter in any way. Why shouldn’t I be able to work as much as my male colleagues, she asks herself.
Professor Johanna: Hope for change
Since 2007, the wage gap has steadily decreased in Sweden by half a percentage point a year. But during the corona pandemic, the gap suddenly increased again, which is believed to be due to, among other things, salary negotiations being postponed.
Whether that change will last, we do not know today.
– I think it should be a matter of course that everyone, regardless of gender, earns the same amount. I hope there will be a change in the future, says Johanna Rickne, who is a professor of national economics, a profession where women on average earn SEK 1,500 less per month than their male colleagues.
In the player above: See the entire feature in the TV4 Nyheternas series about the growing wage gap in Sweden.