IntroductionThe growth of female labour force participation and the subsequent consolidation of their position at work has been the most striking change in the labour market over the past 50 years and this increase in labour force participation is occurring in both developing and industrialised societies. It will appear that women have nonetheless emerged in a stronger labour market position, vis-à-vis men, than ever before.Women represent more than half of the world’s population and their representation is swiftly increasing. At the same time the experiences of women in organizations are very different from those of men. The labour market is undergoing considerablechange. The advancement of new technology, the enterprise culture and thedevelopment of positive action training for women, policies that have beenenacted and other vices have all begun to change the pattern of gendersegregation in the workplace. However, much of theexamination of the advancement of women in the labour market has been couchedin terms of their progress relative to males, largely because their experienceat work has been at a disadvantage. This reality has been manifested in suchoutcomes as occupational segregation into lower paying jobs and unequal accesswithin organizations. Throughout their working lives, women continue to face significant obstacles in gaining access to decent work. Women still earn a lot less than men despite decades of equal-pay laws. Even in many of those countries where gaps in labour force participation and employment have narrowed and where women are shifting away from contributing family work and moving to the services sector, the quality of women’s jobs remains a matter of concern. Looking at how women havefared so far in work representation, I’ll be critically assessing the women inthe UK and Sweden and look at factors that have generally affected women’s workrepresentation such as; the gender pay gap, shared parental leave, policies,women’s segregated jobs, child care and how it affects women’s career in termsof progression.Women in UK and SwedenLooking at the UK overthe past 40years, there has been a rise in the percentage of women aged 16 to64 in employment and a fall in the percentage of men. In April to June 2013around 67percent of women aged 16-64 were in work, an increase from 53percentin 1971. For men the percentage fell to 76percent in 2013 from 92percent in1971. (office for National statistics 2013)Women’s labour marketparticipation has increased, although not as yet to equal men. The overallgender pay gap has narrowed but remains substantive and above the OECD averagenotwithstanding a relatively high rate of women employment in the UK. Womenpredominate among the low paid whose ranks have increased markedly since the1980s. (Lansley and Reed, 2013)Sweden has been describedas one of the most equal countries in the world and one of the most gendersegregated labour markets. It is true that Sweden has the highest rate of women’sparticipation in the work force. However, men and women end up in differentsectors and jobs. Sweden is in many ways a country where there is genderequality. About 80percent of all women in Sweden aged 20 to 64 works outside ofthe home, which is a high proportion compared to many other countries. However, gender inequality still existsin its labour market. Women who work in the same professions as men usuallyhave lower wages, despite doing the same job as men. There are fewer women thanmen in the senior management of companies. Research also shows that there aredifferences between the opportunities men and women have to combine work withfamily life. Women do the majority of housework, even if they work just as muchas men. More women than men take parental leave for longer periods(informationsverige.se 2017).However, they are a lotof key factors among women’s employment some of which includes:Gender pay Gap in UK and SwedenIn the UK, Gender pay gaptakes a centre stage in women’s work representation. In this day and age, itseems shocking that women are still paid relatively less than men. Inequalitystarts at a young age. A UK survey by Halifax shows that boys get 13percentmore pocket money than girls. Today the average working woman in the OECD stillearns 16percent less than her male counterpart despite becoming betterqualified. Job segregation between men and women both across industries andoccupations is a major factor explaining the UK pay gap and regional variationsin the pay gap. The gender pay gap in the UK remains significant with femaleworkers earning on average 17percent less than men. Evidence suggest that thetwo key factors that explains the gender pay gap in the UK are differences in work life patterns betweenmen and women. Many women spend more time out of the workforce than men tohave children or care for their family either via career breaks or by workingpart time or fewer hours. Spending time out of work means that they miss out onpay progression (Connolly and Gregory, 2008). A study by the IFS (2016) showsthat the gender pay gap tends to widen after the arrival of children, whichcoincides with career breaks. Olsen and Walby (2006) showed that differences inwork life patterns explain more than a third of the gender pay gap. The need towork part time or flexibly means that women are often forced into lower payingsectors or occupations that can accommodate these preferences. Even those whoare willing to return to work on a full-time basis face the challenge ofovercoming biases against the ‘’CV gap’’ which makes it difficult for them toreturn to highly competitive senior roles. (PwC, 2017) Also, the second factor is the incidence of occupational segregation.labour market rigidities such as occupational segregation is an importantdriver of the pay gap. Olsen and Walby (2006) show that this factor explains18percent of the pay gap in the UK. Segregation occurs when women cluster insectors that tend to be lower paying, for example in social care or education.Even within sectors women are more likely to take up roles such asadministrative roles rather than senior or managerial roles. The reasons forthis are complex. Part of this is due to social and cultural factors thatchildren adopt from a young age which influence their perspective on suitableoccupations for women. These perceptions are changing as more women entertraditionally male dominated sectors. However, this has yet to translate fullyinto labour market outcomes. As part of a push tonarrow Britain’s persistent pay gap, legislation now requires public andprivate companies with more than 250 employees to publish the average hourlypay difference between male and female. The regulations, which were introducedin the Equality Act 2010, offer an opportunity for businesses to benchmarktheir pay structures against others and to analyse them in detail, perhaps forthe first time. Equal pay law in the UK already demands that employers pay menand women the same for the same job. (PwC, 2017)While in Sweden, men’s wages are still higher than women in Sweden. But the gender wage gap is decreasing, and over the past decade the gap has decreased by 3.1 percentage points, reaching a record low of 13.2 percent. Around one third of the decrease is due to rises in pay and the rest to the altered composition of the workforce. When weighing in factors such as education, age, profession, sector and hours of work, the pay gap between men and women is 5percent (2015). Work in sectors dominated by women is generally valued less and these sectors have lower wage levels than ones dominated by men. (Gustafsson, 2015)In 2011, Swedish women earned 14% less than men, a pay gap just belowthe OECD average (15%). Lower pay not only deprives women of higher earnings inthe short term but it also exposes them to high poverty risk after retirement.Women’s average monthly salaries in Sweden are less than 87% of men’s95% when differences in choice of profession and sector are taken into account.Pay differences are most obvious in the country councils, and the smallestdifference is found among blue-collar workers. The pay gap between men andwomen can partly be explained by differences in profession, sector, position,work experience and age. (Sverige, 2017)One reason for Sweden’s gender pay gap being relatively high is thesegregated nature of the labour market. A large proportion of women work in thepublic sector, where pay is low. However, with new Swedish policies in place,businesses with 25 or more employees have to establish an equality action plan.And companies with big pay gaps face fines if they fail to take steps to closethem. The Swedish gender pay gap has become smaller since this system wasintroduced, but it is still 15percent.Child care and their careersMcQuaid and Lindsey(2005) observed that the organisation of work and the practicalities ofcombining career and motherhood are significant contributory factors to women’srelative poor performance. Although they were unable to establish the degree ofimpact, they did note that motherhood directly affected the type of roles womencan take, prefer or are offered. Waldfogel (2007) described this as detrimentaland termed it the “the penalties of motherhood” in terms of their careerprogression. She noted the difference in men’s career which suffers nodisadvantage because family and marriage produce limited or no careerinterruptions for them. She argued that this penalty may last after the womanhas ceased to have childcare responsibility, indeed for their entire career,due to the negative career effects of break forming a “negative shadow” ontheir future careers. McQuaid et al. (2009) observed that flexible employment,in terms of hours or part-time work were appealing due to the relativelystraightforward entry/exit/re-entry procedures as they enabled women to combinework and family responsibilities more easily, but at a cost to their long-termcareer. They argued that these constraints frequently forced women to take less“attractive” employments which accommodate personal circumstances on reducedsalaries and hours of work or both. (Bryan McIntosh, 2012)There is a tensionbetween motherhood and employment. The impact of motherhood in relations towomen’s career is still underestimated. Motherhood directly affects careerprogression. It results in the devaluation of women’s abilities, a denial ofopportunity and a penalisation in in respect to careers. Women’s careerprogression is defined by motherhood, dependent children, working hours, andcareer breaks. Career break define career progression Davey et al. (2005) viewthat women who take a career break are disadvantaged in terms of progression.However, the axis of this disadvantage is the cumulative length of the break.Women who take a career break of greater than two years see their careersdetrimentally restricted. Also, there is a tangible career penalty for womenwhich does not exist for men. This penalty is pronounced within women withdependent children.  As dependentchildren are still primarily cared for and nurtured by women the exchangebetween this and careers ultimately makes this issue a matter of motherhood. (Bryan McIntosh R. M., 2012)The gender gap in incomeshas narrowed in recent years but it has not disappeared and one of the possiblereasons the gap has not closed is that women’s responsibility to care forchildren continues to hinder their employment. According to Ghazalat Azmat(march 2015) the presence of young children has a major effect in reducingfemale participation in work. Women with children are also likely to work inpart time jobs, which suffer a pay penalty. (Azmat, 2015)According to a survey byMumsnet (2013), it showed that three quarters of British mothers feel thathaving children made it more difficult to progress in their career, and nearlytwo in threes said that they felt less employable after having children.However, I think the main problem is that a lot of people have strongassumptions around women, raising a family and traditional role models. Theseassumptions are strongly influenced by society, organisational culture andindividual experience and they shape behaviour. Women will only be competitivein the workplace if they have good quality reliable child care in place and ifemployers and colleagues recognise the need to set predictable working hoursthat allow for school runs. More than 60% of survey respondents said they felttheir boss had a negative perception of working mothers, which meant they weremistreated when they returned to work, and overlooked for career opportunities.Women often found themselves being offered less senior roles (18%), overlookedfor promotion or opportunities (27%), and even demoted (8%) on returning to theworkforce. (lewis, 2014)According to VictoriaNorthbrooke (August 2015) Flexible childcare that matches parents increasinglyunpredictable schedule is still a distant for the UK government. Many parentshave taken extreme measures to find childcare during school holidays. Whilesome parents are being forced to send their children to grandparents hundredsof miles away while others have borrowed money just to cover the rising costsof care. A study from the Family and childcare trust carried out in (2014)found that a fifth of parents resort to calling in sick over the summerholidays in order to care for their children and 12 percent give up workentirely because they simply can’t find suitable childcare in the holidays. In Sweden, which is renowned for its flexibleand progressive childcare programmes, most public nurseries offer care from 6amto 6pm with recently increased provision to include overnight and weekendchildcare services. While in the UK only 53percent of schools have ‘before andafter’ school clubs during term time and only 20 percent offer holidaychildcare (family and childcare Trust report 2015). With private provision ofholiday childcare places costing from £150 per week per child, many parents arereally feeling the financial strain. Neither do the number and quality of localchildminders meet demand. Affordable childcare iscrucial to Britain’s economy but it is also the lack of flexible care that is aprimary barrier to women returning to the workplace and their career. Britainhas one of the most expensive childcare in the world. A report by Family andChildcare Trust showed that British parents are handing over more than £7,500 ayear for childcare for two children, around 4.7 percent more than the averagemortgage bill. One in three mothers say they have been put off having anotherchild by the cost of childcare, while 77 percent of parents say they wouldchose to work less and spend more time with their children if the childcare inthe UK was more affordable.Sweden has the mostgenerous childcare benefits in the world. They have long had a glowing reputationfor its generous childcare facilities and is regularly ranked as one of thebest places to raise a family. In Sweden each child is guaranteed a place at apublic preschool and no parent is charged more than three percent of theirsalary SEK 1260(£132) a month for the country’s highest earners. All othercosts are covered by the state. Most public nurseries offer care from around06:00 to 18:00 but with the numbers of parents working flexible orunconventional hours going up, local councils are increasingly providingovernight and weekend services. Just over 78percent of mothers with childrenunder seven went out to work in 2012, according to Statistics-Sweden’s labourforce survey (2012). (Savage, 2013).A family policy thatsupports working parents with the same rights and obligations for both men andwomen makes it easier for parents in Sweden to find a decent work life balance.Child care is guaranteed to all parents and the aim is that nursery school andpre-school should be affordable for all. Fees are proportional to the parent’sincome and the more children you have the less you pay per child. For childrenbetween three and six, childcare is even free for up to 15 hours per week. TheSwedish government also provides an additional monthly child allowance untilthe age of 16 of SEK 1,050 per month per child and if you have more than onechild you get an extra family supplement. (source: Sweden and Gender EqualityNovember 2017) Shared parental leave in UK and SwedenWomen who return to workfollowing a career break to take care for their families often face amotherhood penalty which is a systematic difference in pay for working mothersin comparison to women without children. One way of addressing this is byintroducing policies which allows parents to share the burden of childcare. Ithas been a longstanding problem concerning discrimination in the labour marketbecause of women childbearing responsibilities. Women have been looked upon asnot reliable because of their potentials to off work for maternity leave orparental responsibilities. On the other hand, there has been a lot ofcriticisms on the fact that fathers are limited by legislation in terms of whatthey can do in a family situation. Furthermore, parental responsibility hasalways been looked upon as the duty of the woman from time immemorial whilefathers were seen as breadwinners of the family. In an effort to give themothers the opportunity to continue with their career without the child bearingstigma, the government made provision on shared parental leave which came intoforce on the 5th of April,2015. (Ndzi, 2017)The UK governmentintroduced Shared parental leave in April 2015 to try to improve genderequality in the workplace. The policy allows both new parents to share up to50weeks of leave and 37weeks of statutory pay after their baby arrives.  Eligibleemployees with babies due or who plan to adopt a child or intended parents insurrogacy who meet certain criteria, will be able to take advantage of the newshared parental leave rights. They may also choose how they will share thestatutory leave period and the statutory pay between themselves and theirspouses/partners/civil partners. In birth cases, all mothers will still berequired to take two weeks of compulsory maternity leave after their child’sbirth and may request to start Shared Parental leave from the beginning of thethird week after childbirth. Assuming a mother has not chosen to start hermaternity leave early, she and the baby’s father (or her partner) will then beentitled to share the remaining 50 weeks of shared parental leave and 37 weeksof statutory pay. In all non-birth scenarios, eligible employees are able toshare the full 52 weeks of shared parental leave and 39 weeks of statutory pay.Employees will be permitted to take SPL in either one continuous block or,provided their employer agrees, as a series of separate leave periods.Therefore, couples could decide to take their leaves at the same time andeffectively split the SPL and statutory pay evenly between each partner.Alternatively, one of the employees could request a continuous block of leave,with the other employee requesting shorter blocks of leave throughout theirpartner’s block of leave. Employees may also request short blocks of leave andtake these blocks separately, interchanging their childcareresponsibilities. (Lewis, 2014)However, it has had aslow start. A recent survey of 1,000 human resources workers by the CIPD, theprofessional body for HR, suggests that only about 5percent of new fathers haveopted for shared leave since its introduction. It is being said that from April2018, employers will also have to publish detailed information about gender payimbalances in their workforce. They will have to release both their mean andmedian gender pay gap for salaries and bonuses, as well as the number of menand women in each salary quartile. (Sarah O’Connor, 2017). It was the government’sintention that the introduction of shared parental leave and pay in 2015 wouldhelp encourage more working fathers to take more time off after the birth of achild and in turn encourage working mothers to return to work. However, theworking families study showed that 25% of fathers are unaware that they cantake shared parental leave and survey statistics from my family care and thewomen’s business council show that take up of shared parental leave isapproximately 1% with 40% of companies reporting that not a single father hastaken shared parental leave since the regime was introduced. (Smith, 2017)Sweden is really winning the equality race with its laws and attitude towards parenting. Currently in Sweden, parents are given 16 months when a new child is born to share as they choose (although 60 days are given to each parent, and cannot be transferred. This was raised to 90 days in 2016, which as a father, you either take fully or lose. This leave can be taken as hours, days, weeks or months over a period of eight years per child. And 390 of these days are paid at 80% of the parent’s average wage, with a cap for the highest earners. In Sweden there’s something they call ‘Latte papas’ they are vast dressed men who congregate in coffee bars with their babies on a weekday and it is becoming the most globally recognised symbol of Sweden’s generous paternity laws.Childcare is subsidised by the state, and is capped at 3% of a family’sincome. On average, for each child, families rarely pay more than £113 a month.Nurseries are open all day and night to allow for shift work. (Lucyfoster, 2017).  However, Albrecht et al. (2003) hypothesised that the generous parentalleave was a major factor contributing to the glass ceiling in Sweden.  Employers understand that the Swedishparental leave system gives women a strong incentive to participate in thelabour force but also encourages them to take long periods of parental leaveand to be less flexible with respect to hours once they return to work.Extended absence and lack of flexibility are particularly costly for employerswhen employees hold top jobs. Employers therefore place relatively few women infast track career positions. Women, even those who would otherwise be stronglycareer-oriented, understand that their promotion possibilities are limited byemployer beliefs and respond rationally by opting for more family-friendlycareer paths and by fully utilizing their parental leave benefits. Women maychoose family friendly jobs but choice reflects both preferences andconstraints. The argument is that what is different about Sweden is theconstraints that women face and that these constraints in the form of employer expectationare driven in part by the generosity of the parental leave system (James Albrecht, 2014)Although Sweden is often seen as paragons of gender equality, many womenand men are finding it increasingly difficult to strike a balance between theirdual loyalties vis-à-vis work and family (Cousins and Tang, 2004; Kitterod andPwtterson, 2006; Knudsen 2009). Since the 1970s the Swedish welfare state haspromoted an agenda of double emancipation, encouraging a combination of femalelabour market participation and active fatherhood (Klinth, 2002) as a means ofchallenging gendered assumptions over role allocation. Despite this supportiveregulatory environment, research shows parenthood generally affects women’scareers to a higher degree than men (Cahusac and Kanji, 2014; Holth el al.,2013). A job characterized by good wages, high status and opportunities forcareer-development is often shaped to suit the traditional male working modelof someone who is always available for work. (Holith, 2017)How policies have affected the work environment in relation to womenPolicies merely createsthe framework for individual action and for the decisions that must be taken byindividuals. However, it does not dictate behaviour directly.Women’s rights were amajor priority of the 20th century for the UK, and this dramaticallyimpacted their political policies. Over the years the UK government have set upseveral policies that has impacted the work environment in relation to women.The Equal pay act wasintroduced which is supposed to give men and women same equal pay and benefits.However, there is nothing in the equality act to specifically tackle jobsegregation between men and women in the workplace other than perhaps thepublic-sector gender equality duty. Then in 1975 the sex discrimination act wasintroduced to prohibit direct or indirect gender discrimination againstindividuals in the areas of employment, education, the provision of goods,facilities and services. In 2015 the shared parental leave act was enacted withobjectives of achieving a better work-family life balance for parents withincentives for fathers to take leave. In Sweden policy is focused on equality between the sexes in relation to work and family life and on the welfare of children. The perception of the reconciliation of work and family is most positive in Sweden where the employment of mothers is a political objective and the raising of children is also considered a societal duty.Gender equality andrelated policies have been a central concern in Sweden since at least the 1970sand their governments over the years have been committed to further developmentof these policies. The policies that the Swedish governments put up are said topursue the following:Equal division of power and influencegiving men and women the same equal rights and responsibilities to participatein society and to shape the conditions for decision makingEconomic equality, giving men and womenthe same rights and possibilities as regards education and remunerated workleading to lifelong economic independence.Equal distribution of unpaid house andcare work, giving men and women equal responsibilities and rights in this area.In Sweden, some of the mostimportant reforms concerning gender equality took place in the labour marketand in social policy in the 1970s. These reforms pushed gender equality andincreased women’s prospects to have the same opportunities as men to enter thelabour market, and to remain and develop there. Parts of the unpaid householdand care work, often performed by women, became the responsibility of thepublic welfare system. Women thus gained access to employment and greaterfinancial independence, which increased their well-being and bargaining powerin the household. In addition, men were encouraged and enabled to participatein family life to a greater extent. These reforms also contributed to thedevelopment of a modern welfare state in Sweden. Some policies that where includedis the Separate income taxation for wife and husband in 1971. This created anincentive for women to work as their income was no longer seen as part of thehusband’s income. This was more advantageous for both partners to work. Therewas also a policy for Development of public child care in 1974 it was said tobe a governments decision. Women were often faced with impossible dailyschedules and frequently had to work unsocial hours when the children’s fatherwere at home. The development of affordable public child care facilitiesavailable to all is a prerequisite to Sweden’s large proportion of women ingainful employment. Sweden was the first country to introduce gender-neutralpaid parental leave benefit. And since then this parental leave reform has beenrevised several times. Today, women and men are entitled to 480 days of paidparental leave (16 months) per child. Ninety of those days (3 months) arereserved for each parent and cannot be transferred to the other parent (thethird reserved month was introduced in 2016). Introducing a third reservedmonth for each parent was a measure to achieve a more even distribution ofunpaid household and care work, and gender equality in the labour market.(source: Gender Equality policy in Sweden (2016) Government offices of Sweden)SummaryDespite the remarkablegrowth in women’s labour force participation in recent years, women’s greaterresponsibility for childbirth and childcare does seem to be hindering genderwage equalization. Throughout their working lives, women continue to facesignificant obstacles in gaining access to decent work. Inequality betweenwomen and men persist in global labour markets, in respect of opportunities,treatment and outcomes. The labour marketposition of women in the UK has been generally improving, with higheremployment rates and increases in earnings. However, on these measures womenstill fare worse in the Job market; the formal employment rate for women islower and female weekly earnings are still less than 70% of male weeklyearnings Sweden has been described as a social democratic welfare state regime (Esping-Anderson, 1990), as a weak male breadwinner system (Lewis, 1992), and as a nation with an extensive family policy system (Boje and Ejrnaes, 2012). There is a well-developed, publicly funded universal health insurance system, unemployment insurance, and social assistance system, but the state also takes responsibility for the children and the elderly. With publicly subsidized day care centres, public schools and universities, paid maternity and paternity leaves, medical and social care for the elderly, and the statutory right to stay home from work (also paid) with sick children for either parent all financed through the tax system. These policies have resulted in a high rate of labour market participation for women and a comparatively low degree of social stratification. It has also created jobs for women in the public sector: 82% of women changed 20-64 are in the labour force, and about half of them work for the public sector (Statistics Sweden, 2012).ReferencesAzmat, G. (2015). Gender Gaps in the UK Labour Market:jobs, pay and family-freindly policies. The London school of Economics andPolitical science.Bryan McIntosh, R. M. (2012). Motherhood and itsimpact on career progression. Gender in Management.Bryan McIntosh, R. M. (2012). Motherhood and itsimpact on career progression. 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