Flýtilyklar
Gender equality in Norway
The Gender Equality Act came into force in 1979 and has subsequently been amended several times most recently in 2005. In May 2005 the parliament approved a government proposal for a joint machinery against all forms of discrimination. The new institutional mechanism was established 1 January 2006 and integrates the task of the Gender Equality Ombud, the Gender Equality Board of Appeals, the Gender Equality Centre and the Centre against Ethnic Discrimination. The machinery consists of The Equality and anti-discrimination Ombud and The Equality and Anti-discrimination Tribunal. Both the Ombud and the Tribunal are state funded, but they are by parliamentary law made independent of governmental instructions in their work. The main reason for this, is that they shall be free to make recommendations and pass rulings over incidents which involve the government and state institutions (even though they cannot annul or alter other public authorities decisions)
The responsible ministry is Ministry of children and equality, which has a department of family affairs and gender equality. Gender equality statistics is gathered by Statistic Norway, which publicises an annual Gender Equality Index for Norwegian municipalities (www.ssb.no )
In addition to the Gender Equality Act, gender equality is also made explicit in other Norwegian Acts and Regulations, and it is highly believed that it is necessary to have a combination of initiatives at different levels to facilitate conciliation between paid work and family life in order to promote gender equality.
Norway ranges second (2) on the Global Gender Gap Index (www.weforum.org ) The Norwegian fertility rate is high compared to other EU countries with 1.84 children per woman (2005) and we have one of the highest per cent of women at work (75%). Some of the public arrangements to provide the basis for increased female employment are paid parental leave (53 weeks with 80% salary or 43 weeks with a full salary), a father’s quota in connection with parental leave of 6 weeks. Norway also has a system where each parent can be at home on paid leave for ten days per year if a child (up to the age of 12) is ill. Further, substantial resources have been invested in the development of day care centres. Currently 72% of children aged 1-5 have a place in a day care centre, the governmental aim is to provide full day care coverage.
Norway is the first country in the world to have an Act on Gender representation on the boards of public limited companies (from 1 January 2006) The act provides for that by 2008 at least 40% of board members have to be women.
There still is a clear difference between men and women in Norway in terms of participation in society and family life. In Norway 43% of employed women work part-time. Men work full time, and many of them work a great deal overtime. This means that we are a long way from full equality on the labour market, in the division of power and care and in terms of income and promotion. Only 1 out of 10 top executives are women, and women do in average earn only 84,7% of men’s salary. While a total of 47% of women work in the public sector, the figure for men is 18%. Out of these most women work at the municipal level (education and health), while among the men it’s more equally divided between national and local levels (they work within the technical sector). Girls still take traditional educations as teachers, nurses and secretary, while the boys select among a much broader spectre of educations.
Bulgaria
Finland
Greece
Iceland
Norway
