of mothers work in Scandinavia. Austria, France, UK and the US compose the next
group of countries with mothers’ employment rates ranging between 73%~76%. The rest
of the countries fall some where between 50% to 70%. In other words, Scandinavian
women stay in the workforce through their pregnancy and child-rearing years. Moreover,
the gender gap in enterprise tenure is smaller in Scandinavian countries when compared
to others (see Figure 3). Although both the statistical discrimination and atrophy theories
would predict Scandinavian countries to have the lowest levels of sex segregation, as we
have seen already, such is not the case.
[Figure 3 around here]
I.2.
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
:
CULTURAL NORMS OF GENDER ROLES
Cultural theories—favored by sociologists and some feminist economists—reject
the aforementioned economic theories. Feminist economists critique mainstream male
economists for taking the gendered division of labor for granted.
Sociologists
challenge the assumption of economic rationality as the basis of sex discrimination.
Instead, they emphasize the role of non-rational factors such as employers’ tastes and
“cultural norms.” They recognize various discriminatory practices that arise from
company-level personnel management practices and cultural norms about “appropriate”
gender roles.
Other sociologists have looked into the process of socialization that
affects women’s career choices.
Nuanced cultural explanations should be able to
account for both vertical and horizontal sex segregation. Horizontal segregation occurs
when certain jobs are stereotyped as being either “feminine” or “masculine.” Cultural
theorists associate female qualities such as inter-personal skills with service sector jobs
8
Convention