Voting and Social Inclusion in Sweden

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and provincial voting privileges to non‐citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self‐esteem among foreign citizens. The aim of this paper is to explore the act of voting as a measure of social inclusion by comparing voting propensities of immigrants (people born outside Sweden), their descendants (born in Sweden) and native Swedish citizens (those who have citizenship through jus sanguine) while controlling for a range of socio‐economic, demographic characteristics, contextual factors and a set of “hard” and “soft” social inclusion related variables. In particular we focus on the impact of citizenship acquisition ‐‐ does the symbolic act of attaining citizenship result in increased voting participation on the part of Swedish residents who are not citizens by birth. We use the Swedish 2006 electoral survey matched to registry data from Statistics Sweden to assess the correlates of voting by Swedish‐born and immigrant residents. Using instrumental variable regressions we estimate the impact of citizenship acquisition. We find that acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the probability of voting. Immigrants who naturalise are in general far more likely to vote than those who do not.     

Contracts for intimate relationships

This paper analyzes the extent to which intimate relationships established by contract differ from, and are more egalitarian than, those established by traditional legal marriage. Three types of intimate contracts are examined: contracts between legally married spouses, contracts written as a prelude to legal marriage, and contracts written by unmarried cohabitors as an alternative to legal marriage. The paper addresses two major questions: (1) To what extent do the relationships established by contract differ from those established by legal marriage? (2) To what extent do these contracts support more egalitarian family forms? While considerable variation by type of relationship was found, with the cohabitors departing the most from the traditional legal model, even the married couples wrote contracts that were significantly different from the model imposed by law. They were much more likely to structure their relationship as a partnership rather than as a hierarchy, and to hold their income and property as community property. Further, they were more likely to share the responsibilities for both economic support and homemaking tasks (in contrast to the legal assignment of these duties on the basis of sex). Thus, when compared to the relationships established by law, the 50 intimate contracts in this sample seemed to support more egalitarian family forms.     

Residential choices of immigrants in Australia

"In recent years Asian-Australians, especially those born in Indochina, have become a target of criticism by anti-immigration groups which accuse them of choosing to live only in ?closed societies' and ?ethnic ghettos' in Australian cities.... Evidence presented in the article shows clearly that while immigrant groups may prefer to settle in close proximity of their family and kin for practical and/or emotional reasons, their preference is not ethnically determined.... We also show that affordability, closeness to spouse's work, and neighbourhood services, rather than family and social contacts, are important factors for Asian-born immigrants when they move." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Gender,work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.     

Developments in Spousal Power Relations: Are We Moving Toward Equality?

We present an analysis of developments in perceptions of spousal power relations, as reflected in decision-making and division of household labor. Based on research conducted from as early as the 1960s to the present, we analyzed theoretical approaches ranging from the classic resource theories and gender role ideology to more complex approaches. We also examined contextual factors that may impact spousal relations. In addition, we addressed spousal power relations in new family configurations, such as cohabiting and homosexual families. Regardless of the type of family under discussion, the core research question examined in this article was whether women's acquisition of increased resources has generated a trend toward more egalitarian spousal power relations. The findings reveal that today spousal decision-making patterns are more egalitarian than in the past. However, with regard to division of household labor, women still bear the main responsibility for household chores.     

Gender roles,marriage, and residential independence

This article examines the effects of gender role attitudes on leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence among young men and women in the United States in the 1980s. The choice to leave home for unmarried independence is associated with two major changes in family relationships: the shift in parent-child interaction from a traditional emphasis on children's obedience toward a greater stress on independence, and the shift toward more egalitarian definitions of gender roles in both work and family spheres. We ask the following: What is the effect of holding more modern gender role attitudes on gender differences in leaving home for marriage? Does holding more modern gender role attitudes influence patterns of leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence differently for men and women? We examine these questions with data from sophomores in the High School and Beyond Survey.     

Do Female Colleagues and Supervisors Influence Family Role Attitudes? A Three‐Level Test of Exposure Explanations Among Employed Men and Women in 27 European Countries

This study examines the relationship between various aspects of female labor participation and people's family role attitudes. Following exposure theory, we expect that individuals may adopt more egalitarian family roles as they are more often exposed to employed women because it dispels negative ideas about women's capabilities and brings them into contact with nontraditional networks. This study provides an elaborate test by examining the role of exposure to female colleagues and supervisors in three contexts: workplaces, occupational sectors, and countries. We found that the number of female colleagues at work and in occupational sectors was positively related to egalitarian family roles of employed men. Our study further showed that this positive relationship between exposure to female colleagues at work and men's egalitarian family roles was weaker in female‐dominated sectors. Remarkably, exposure to national female labor participation was not significantly related to the family roles of employed women.     

Distributive interdependencies in liberal egalitarianism

Liberal egalitarian theories of justice share the egalitarian ideal that inequalities due to factors beyond individual control should be eliminated. This justifies that individuals sometimes receive more (or less) than their marginal productivity, which in turn implies that a change in one individual’s effort sometimes will affect the post-tax income of others. What restrictions should we place on such distributive interdependencies? The article provides characterizations of three main classes of redistribution mechanisms on the basis of how this question is answered.     

Do Traditional Fathers Always Work More? Gender Ideology,Race, and Parenthood

Research has shown that men who express traditional gender ideologies spend more time in paid work when they become fathers, whereas men who express egalitarian ideologies spend less time in paid work. This study extends previous research by examining racial differences among men. We drew on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 23,261) and found that fatherhood was associated with an increase in married White men's time spent in paid work. The increase was more than twice as strong for traditional White men than for egalitarian White men. In contrast, both egalitarian and traditional African American men did not work more when they became fathers. These findings suggest that African American men may express gender traditionalism but adopt more egalitarian work–family arrangements. This study also presents evidence of an interaction among race, class, and gender ideology that shapes fathers' time spent in paid work.     

Does Religious Attendance Moderate the Connection Between Pornography Consumption and Attitudes Toward Women?

Feminist theory and religious doctrines alike often suggest that pornography alters the attitudes of those who consume it, particularly with respect to how consumers view women. Many would assume that pornography would universally encourage sexism and female objectification, but recent evidence has linked pornography use with more gender egalitarian views. Using data from a large-scale, nationally representative survey, we argue that cognitive dissonance among pornography consumers could alter egalitarian attitudes. We found that those who reported consuming pornography had more egalitarian attitudes than those who did not, but this difference was stronger among those who attended religious services more regularly—those who would be likely to experience dissonance when consuming pornography. This pattern was consistent across the three egalitarian attitudes we examined: attitudes toward women in power, women in the workplace, and abortion. Our results suggest that pornography might foster progressive attitudes among those most likely to hold conservative beliefs.     

Couples’ Parental Leave Practices: The Role of the Workplace Situation

We address the issue of the relationship between couples?? parental leave practices and their workplace situation in a Nordic family policy setting described as both generous and gender egalitarian. The most common practice is that the father makes use of a mandatory fathers?? quota and the mother uses the rest of the total of 12?months of paid leave. There is little limitations in parents?? workplaces for fathers use of the father??s quota. Parental leave practices involving couples where the father is taking longer leave than the father??s quota and thereby the mother taking shorter leave compared with those taking maximum, are associated both with mothers?? workplaces and fathers?? workplaces.     

One step forward? Advances and setbacks on the path toward gender equality in families and work

Men and women increasingly express egalitarian preferences for organizing family life, but workplace norms and practices are still based on relatively traditional assumptions about the gender division of labor in families. In this article, we unpack this discordant feature of the cultural landscape with recent sociological research on gender, work, and family. We begin by discussing the growing body of evidence on preferences for gender–egalitarian relationships and specify how these egalitarian desires are incongruous with workplace norms and practices. Such a mismatch between desires and reality tends to produce negative personal and career outcomes, including work–family conflict, stress, and job and marital dissatisfaction. Then, we offer a critical review of the recent actions taken by some employers and policymakers to address this issue. We observe some progressive changes in both the public and private sector in regard to family leave policies, flexible work arrangements, childcare support, and fertility benefits, but these policy initiatives still fall short of supporting gender–egalitarian arrangements for working families. We conclude with a discussion of how researchers could better evaluate and increase the effectiveness of workplace initiatives.     

Gender equality in ‘the most equal country in the world'? Money and marriage in Sweden1

This article analyses how Swedish couples perceive the sharing of money and consumption between themselves and their partner. Interviews were conducted with ten Swedish married couples. Each spouse was interviewed separately about their incomes, financial organization, patterns of consumption, views about money and decision-making. Regardless of whether they pooled their incomes or kept money separately, all were in agreement about the importance of equal sharing and access to money and consumption. Despite stated goals of gender equality, however, consumption was not perceived as being shared equally. Two factors central to understanding this were the ways that daily finances were managed and the fact that women had responsibility for the daily finances of the family. Another important aspect was the ways that items of consumption were defined. Food and children's clothes were areas that were in a ‘grey zone’ regarding which money was used to pay for them, and they often fell to the woman. This practical responsibility and associated awareness of the family economy serve as obstacles to women's sense of entitlement and access to money for personal discretionary spending, a problem not experienced by men.     

Race,sex, and alternate lifestyle choices

This article is a criticism of recent work on alternative life styles both because of its lack of attention to structural constraints on the ability of individuals to pursue personal growth as an important goal in their lives and for its young, affluent, white male bias in the choice of alternatives being researched. Using a sample of first year students at a large urban university, we examined a range of lifestyle choices by race and sex. Differences in the students' background included larger families, lower levels of education, and more frequent contacts with the extended family for Black students as compared to their white counterparts. We were not surprised to find that, of the four groups, white male students most approved the types of alternatives usually discussed by alternative lifestyles researchers; specifically, those concerning sexual freedom, since this is an area traditionally more open to white males. On other alternatives, they were the most conservative. The other three groups were more likely to want egalitarian marriages and to be willing to raise an out of wedlock child. More blacks than whites supported extended family networks and radical political action. Women were more in favor of egalitarian marriages than men.     

Equality of opportunity and the distribution of long-run income in Sweden

Equality of opportunity is an ethical goal with almost universal appeal. The interpretation taken here is that a society has achieved equality of opportunity if it is the case that what individuals accomplish, with respect to some desirable objective, is determined wholly by their choices and personal effort, rather than by circumstances beyond their control. We use data for Swedish men born between 1955 and 1967 for whom we measure the distribution of long-run income, as well as several important background circumstances, such as parental education and income, family structure and own IQ before adulthood. We address the question: in Sweden, given its present constellation of social policies and institutions, to what extent is existing income inequality due to circumstances, as opposed to ‘effort’? Our results suggest that several circumstances, importantly both parental income and own IQ, are important for long-run income inequality, but that variations in individual effort account for the most part of that inequality.     

The Power of Older Women and Men in Egyptian and Tunisian Families

We adapt resource theory to compare involvement in family decisions by older women and men in the more patriarchal setting of Egypt and the more egalitarian setting of Tunisia. Data from the World Health Organization Collaborative Study on Social and Health Aspects of Aging are analyzed. In Egypt, women participate less often than men in most decisions, whereas participation is more gender equitable in Tunisia. Increasing age and declining health are negatively associated with participation in daily and life course decisions, particularly for Egyptian women. Although women participate less often than men in life course decisions in Egypt, involvement is more frequent among widows and those owning their homes. Future research should examine the relationship of resources, support, and the family power of older adults across normative contexts.     

Have Authoritarian Parenting Practices and Roles Changed in the Last 50 Years?

This study examined changes in authoritarian parenting practices and family roles in Sweden over the last 50 years. Data came from 3 cohorts (1958, 1981, and 2011) of young to middle‐age adults living in a suburb of Stockholm who answered questions about how they were raised (N₁₉₅₈ = 385, N₁₉₈₁ = 207, N₂₀₁₁ = 457). The results showed a dramatic decrease in parents' directive control. Also, over time, parents increasingly allowed children to express anger toward them. Parents' roles changed from stereotyped versions of fathers as decision makers and mothers as caregivers to both parents sharing decisions and garnering respect from children. Overall, the results suggest that authoritarian parenting practices have declined dramatically and moved toward more egalitarian family environments. Virtually all these changes in parental practices and parental roles happened between the last 2 cohorts.     

Food practices and division of domestic labour. A comparison between British and Swedish households

This paper emanates from a problem with general reference to basic conditions of family life and food practices. More specifically it concerns the striving of preventive health care in persuading contemporary Western Europeans to change their attitudes to food in a health oriented direction. The question is: Do gender roles at home influence people's attitudes towards food? A survey of current sociological and ethnological research in Great britain and Sweden shows two partly different gender role patterns, one (the British) with obvious traits of role segregation and the other (the Swedish) comparatively more integrated. From these observations follows an analysis of how each pattern respectively affects food practices on a household level. One conclusion is that segregated roles seem to favour conservatism while equality oriented relations create prerequisites for changeability. The discussion comments on social and historical conditions generating differences in gender role patterns, with special emphasis on working class culture and peasant culture as important historical factors. The paper concludes by asserting that the conditions for political initiative aimed at increased equality at home are better today than ever before during the twentieth century. But to succeed these initiatives must primarily focus upon the male role and its relation to domestic work.     

Transaction Costs and Coalition Stability under Majority Rule

Government program allocations are more stable and more equally shared than theory predicts. Although various explanations have been offered, we emphasize the high transaction costs of political negotiations and coalition enforcement. Cycling predictions ignore the cost to politicians of repeatedly forming coalitions and neglect the opportunity costs of failed coalitions and the loss of related government programs that bring valuable constituent benefits. Because of these costs, Congress relies on coalitions larger than the minimum necessary to enact a program, adopts relatively egalitarian programmatic sharing rules, and resists efforts to change those allocations. To illustrate we analyze the Federal Highway Trust Fund.     

Division of Labor and Decision-Making in Arab Families in Israel: Processes of Change and Preservation

The study examines the changes that Arab families in Israel have undergone over three generations. It focuses on change and preservation in the division of labor between spouses, in the attitudes toward it, and оn how decisions are made in the family. It also examines the factors contributing to the preservation of traditional characteristics and those contributing to change. The study included 378 Moslem and Christian Arab women from three generations (grandmothers, mothers, and daughters). The findings indicate significant changes: the younger the generation is, the less traditional are the attitudes it holds and the more egalitarian the life of the couple is. The factors found to promote change were the woman’s education, work outside the home, intensive contacts with the Jewish population, and living near Jewish communities. The factor that was found to contribute most to the preservation of traditional patterns is consensual solidarity with the mother.