Anita Margareta Virginia Nyberg

About me

Until its closing in 2007 I was a professor in gender perspective on work and economy at the National Institute for Working Life, and this together with gender equality policy and the male norm in labour force statistics, comprises my research interests.

In the second half of the 1990s I was the general secretary of a governmental committee on the distribution of economic power and economic resources between women and men. The committee resulted in thirteen different reports covering women and men’s situation in the family, the labour market and their relation to the welfare state. In 2005 and in 2015, I participated in other official reports where I wrote about economic gender equality and economic independence. In a similar vein I was one of the editors of Kön och makt i Norden (Gender and Power in the Nordic Countries) (2009), which was initiated by the Nordic Ministers of Gender Equality and “Women and Poverty”, “Education and Training for Women” and “Women and the Economy” in Beijing + 15:  The Platform for Action and the European Union, a Report from the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union (2009). In other publications I have written about 50 years of gender equality policy in Sweden and the development of women’s employment, publicly financed childcare, parental leave during this period, including the introduction of individual taxation in 1971.   

I have also worked as a lecturer in economics in the Economics Department and as a researcher at Theme Technology and Social Change at the University of Linköping. During 2007 I was a visiting lecturer at the University of Southern Main, Portland, Maine, and Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA, on a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation.

I am today the expert from Sweden in the European Network of Scientific Analysis and Advice on Gender Equality (SAAGE) and have in this context written many reports concerning the situation in Sweden from a gender perspective on many different issues. 

A selection of publications from 2006-

2018 "From Kick-Start to U-Turn? Gender Equality in Sweden" in B. English, M.E. Frederickson and O. Sanmigud-Valderrama (eds.), Global Women's Work. Perspectivies on Gender and Work in the Global Economy. Routledge.

2017 The impact of individual taxation on gender equality in Sweden. ​Discussion paper. The European Union Rights, Equality and Citizinship Programme (2014-2020), European Commission.

2015 “The Swedish RUT-reduction - Subsidy of formal employment or of high income earners’ leisure time?” in N. Morel and C. Carbonnier (eds.) Political Economy of Household Services in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

2015 “Ekonomisk självständighet och ekonomisk jämställdhet” (Economic independence and economic gender equality” in Forskarrapporter till Jämställdhetsutredningen (Research report to the official gender equality report) SOU 2015:86. http://www.sou.gov.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SOU-2015_86_forskarrapporter_webb.pdf

2014 “Sysselsättningspolitik och jämställdhet 2006-2012” (Employment policy and gender equality 2006-2012) in L. Gonäs and L. Abrahamsson (eds.) Arbetets organisatoriska villkor och ramar för kvinnor och män (The organisational conditions and limits for women and men). SOU 2014:30. Stockholm: Delegation for Gender Equality in Working Life. http://jamstalldhetiarbetslivet.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/887063_SOU-2014_30_inl_T-antologi-2.pdf

2014 “Being a Woman and Doing Gender in Sweden” in R. Pande (ed.) A Journey into Women’s Studies. Crossing Interdisciplinary Boundaries. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

2014 “Women and men’s employment in the recessions of the 1990s and 2000s in Sweden” in A. Eydoux, A. Math and H. Pérvier (eds.) European Labour Markets in Times of Crisis. A Gender Perspective. Paris: SciencesPo Revue de lÓfce.

2014 “Review of Gendered Money: Financial Organization in Women’s Movements, 1880–1933” by P. Jonsson and S. Neusinger (New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books 2012) in Historisk tidskrift 2014:4

2013 Review of OECD’s “Closing the Gender Gap. Act Now”, Global Social Policy.

2013 ”RUT-avdraget”(the RUT-reduction), Fronesis, Nr. 42-43.

2013 ”Hur gick det sedan? Femtio år av sysselsättning och arbete” (What has happened? Fifty years of employment and work) in E. Blomberg and K. Niskanen (eds.) Work and gender equality. Changes during fifty years. Stockholm: SNS

2013 ”Hur gick det sedan? Femtio år av offentligt finansierad barnomsorg” (What has happened? Fifty years of publicly financed childcare) in E. Blomberg and K. Niskanen (eds.) Work and gender equality. Changes during fifty years. Stockholm: SNS.

2013 “Hur gick det sedan? Femtio år av vårdnadsbidrag, föräldraförsäkring och jämställdhetspolitik” (What has happened? Fifty years of cash-for-care allowance, parental leave and gender equality policy) in E. Blomberg and K. Niskanen (eds.) Work and gender equality. Changes during fifty years. Stockholm: SNS.

2012 World Development Report 2010 – Country Case Study of Sweden. Washington, US: World Bank.

2012 “Looking Back at Taxation Separation in Sweden” in R. Silvera and H, Pérvier (eds.) Travail, genre et société, No. 27.

2012 “Fifty years of gender equality policy in Sweden” Gender and Sustainability of Welfare States.  Seoul, Korea: Korean Women’s Development Institute.

2012 “Reconciliation of Work and Family in Sweden” Challenges and Responses of Work-Family Balance Policies, Seoul, Korea: International Conference, KWEA-KWDI.

2012 “Gender Equality Policy in Sweden: 1970s ̶ 2010s” Nordic Journal of Working Life, posted on November 1. http://www.nordicwl.com/?s=nyberg

2011 “Ҫocuk Bakimina Kamu Destegi ve Ebeveyn Izni Isveҫ´te Ne Dereceye Kadar Etkili Oldu?” (Have the policies of publicly financed childcare and parental leave been effective in Sweden) in I. Ilkkaracan (ed.) Is ve Aile Yasamini Uzlastirma Politikalari (Towards Gender Equality in the Labour Market: Work-Family Life Reconciliation). Istanbul, Turkey: ITU MTKAUM/Kadinin Insan Haklari Yeni Ҫûzûmlrt Dernegi.

2010 “Cash-for-childcare schemes in Sweden: history, political contradictions and recent development” in J. Sipilä, K. Repo and T. Rissanen (eds.) Cash for Child Care: The Consequences for Caring Mother. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

2010 Mycket snack och lite verkstad? Jämställdhetspolitikens genomslag i statsbudgeten 1980-2012 (A lot of talking and little action? The influence of gender equality policies on the state budget 1980-2012). Stockholm: Jämi. http://www.jamiprogram.se/publikationer/

2010 “Mitt liv som forskningsprojekt” (My life as a research project) in K. Niskanen and C. Florin (eds), Föregångarna. Kvinnliga professorer om liv, makt och vetenskap (Forerunners. Female professors about life, power and science). Stockholm: SNS Förlag.

2010 Kön och makt i Norden. Del II Sammanfattande diskussion och analys (Gender and power in the Nordic countrries. Part II Concluding discussion and analysis). K. Niskanen & A. Nyberg (eds). Köpenhamn: Nordiska ministerrådet. http://www.norden.org/da/publikationer/publikationer/2010-525

2010 “Gender Equality, Publicly Financed Child Care and Parental Leave in Sweden”, Gender Equality Forum for Sustainable Urban Growth. Seoul, Korea: Foundation of Women and Family.

2009 “Sweden: Precarious work and precarious unemployment” (together with I. Jonsson) in L. F. Vosko, M. MacDonald and I. Campbell (eds) Gender and the Contours of Precarious Employment. London: Routledge.

2009 “Women and Poverty”, “Education and Training for Women” and Women and the Economy” in Beijing + 15: The Platform for Action and the European Union. Report from the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/Beijing+15-SE-report.pdf

2009 Kön och makt i Norden. Del I Landsrapporter (Gender and Power in the Nordic Countries), K. Niskanen and A. Nyberg (eds.). Köpenhamn: Nordiska ministerrådet. http://www.norden.org/da/publikationer/publikationer/2009-569

2009 “European gender equality policies in response to the crisis: employment, childcare and parental leave” Reunión de especialistas “Análisis de la crisis Económica y financiera desde la perspective de género: Entendiendo su impacto sobre la pobreza y el trabajo de las mujeres”, Mexico, D.F. 23-24 de Julio. www.cepal.org/cgi-bin/getprod.asp?xml=/mujer/noticias/paginas/f/36595/P365

2008 Världens mest könssegregerade arbetsmarknad i världens mest jämställda land? (The world’s most gender segregated labour market in the world’s most gender equal country?). Stockholm: Premiss förlag.

2007 “Desarrollo del modelo de dos sustentadores/dos cuidadores en Suecia: el papel del sistema de educación infantil y de los permisos parentales” in M. Pazos Morán (ed) Economía e igualdad de género: retos de la hacienda pública en el siglo XXI. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.

2007 “Lessons from the Swedish experience” In Elizabeth Hill, Barbara Pocock & Alison Elliott (eds) Kids Count: Better early childhood education and care in Australia. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

2007 “La restructuración del Estado del bienestar y el modelo dual de Breadwinner. Atención a la infancia en Suecia en los anos noventa” in P. De Villota (ed) Conciliación de la vida profesional y familiar. Madrid: Editorial Sintese Economía.

2006 "Diverging paths? The dual earner-dual carer model in Finland and Sweden in the 1990s" (with A. Haataja) in A L Ellingsæter and A. Leira (eds) Politicising parenthood: Gender Relations in Scandinavian Welfare State Redesign. Bristol Policy Press.

2006 "Economic crisis and the sustainability of the dual earner, dual carer model" in D. Perrons (ed.) Work, life and time in the new economy. Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, US: Edward Elgar.