Samhällsnormers konsekvenser för kvinnor på arbetsmarknaden i Sverige och Italien : - En jämförande fallstudie

This essay is a comparative study of the situation on the labour market for women in Sweden and Italy. Sweden is one of the countries in the European union that has the highest number of working women and one of the most efficient childcare service. Italy on the other hand is in the bottom in both questions. Today we have the acknowledgement that childcare service has a great impact on the possibility for women to combine career and motherhood. The aim of this essay is to study how women’s history and the social norms affect this question with applying Anthony Giddens theory of structuration. Giddens argue that the individuals shapes the society and its structure. The result of the study reveals that in Italy the traditional social norms still are strong. A major part of the Italian men and women still has the opinion that men are not well suited to take care of children. They even think that preschool children suffer if their mothers are working. In Sweden, the social norms are diverse, but we can see that in 1990s a major part of swedes had the same opinion regarding preschool children as the Italian. This has changed over the years and today almost none of the respondents of the survey agrees that preschool children suffer if their mothers are working. This can explain why many Italian mothers do not go back to work after childbirth. And in the longer term; it can explain why the Italian politicians do not fight harder for family politics and more benefits for working mothers