A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Social Stratification by Gender and Parenthood: The Importance of Family Formation, Gender Roles, and Ideals

  2023. Marie Evertsson, Charlotta Magnusson, Maaike van der Vleuten. The Oxford Handbook of Social Stratification, C35S1-C35N1

  Chapter

  This chapter discusses theories and research on social stratification by gender, focusing on wage and earnings inequalities. The first part describes changes over time in gendered economic inequalities and discusses the various theories used to account for the gender pay gap from demand-side and supply-side perspectives. The division of paid and unpaid work changes considerably when couples have children. The second part of the chapter discusses research on the earnings gap and the theories aimed at explaining why the majority of women, and rarely men, take the parental leave and reduce their work hours when children are young. Finally, the chapter teases out the relevance of these theories by comparing how the transition to parenthood links to relative income development in female same-sex and different-sex couples in the Nordic countries. Findings suggest that the doing of gender and identity formation may be the most important factors explaining birth mothers’ relative earnings development.

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• Parents’ drinking, childhood hangover? Parental alcohol use, subjective health complaints and perceived stress among Swedish adolescents aged 10–18 years

  2023. Joakim Wahlström (et al.). BMC Public Health 23

  Article

  Background Alcohol abuse is not only harmful to the consumer but may also negatively impact individuals in the drinker’s social environment. Alcohol’s harm to others is vital to consider when calculating the true societal cost of alcohol use. Children of parents who have alcohol use disorder tend to have an elevated risk of negative outcomes regarding, e.g., health, education, and social relationships. Research on the general youth population has established a link between parental drinking and offspring alcohol use. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding other outcomes, such as health. The current study aimed to investigate the associations between parental drinking and children’s psychological and somatic complaints, and perceived stress.

  Methods Data were derived from a nationally representative sample, obtained from the 2010 Swedish Level-of-Living survey (LNU). Parents and adolescents (ages 10–18) living in the same households were interviewed independently. The final study sample included 909 adolescents from 629 households. The three outcomes, psychological and somatic complaints and perceived stress, were derived from adolescents’ self-reports. Parents’ selfreports of alcohol use, both frequency and quantity, were used to categorise adolescents as having abstaining, lowconsuming, moderate-drinking, or heavy-drinking parents. Control variables included adolescents’ gender, age, family structure, and household socioeconomic status. Linear and binary logistic regression analyses were performed.

  Results Parental heavy drinking was more common among adolescents living in more socioeconomically advantaged households and among adolescents living with two custodial parents or in reconstituted families. Adolescents with heavy-drinking parents reported higher levels of psychological and somatic complaints and had an increased likelihood of reporting stress, compared with those having moderate-drinking parents. These associations remained statistically significant when adjusting for all control variables.

  Conclusion The current study’s results show that parental alcohol consumption is associated with poorer offspring adolescent health. Public health policies that aim to reduce parental drinking or provide support to these adolescents may be beneficial. Further studies investigating the health-related outcomes among young people living with heavy-drinking parents in the general population are needed to gain more knowledge about these individuals and to implement adequate public health measures.

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• Problematic familial alcohol use and adolescent outcomes: Do associations differ by parental education?

  2023. Joakim Wahlström (et al.). Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

  Article

  Aim: To investigate the associations between problematic familial alcohol use and adolescent subjective health, binge drinking, relationships with parents, school performance, and future orientation, and to study whether these associations differ in relation to parental education. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the Stockholm School Survey (SSS) collected among students in the 9th and 11th grades in 2018 and in 2020 were used (n = 19,415). Subjective health, parent-youth relationships, and school performance were coded as continuous variables; binge drinking and future orientation were coded as binary variables. Familial drinking included three categories: problematic; don't know/missing; and not problematic. Parental university education distinguished between adolescents with two, one, or no university-educated parent(s). Control variables included gender, grade, family structure, migration background, parental unemployment, and survey year. Linear and binary logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: Problematic familial alcohol use was associated with worsened subjective health, a higher likelihood of engaging in binge drinking, worse relationships with parents, and a higher likelihood of having a pessimistic future orientation, even when adjusting for all control variables. Having less than two university-educated parents was associated with a higher likelihood of reporting problematic familial alcohol use. Parental university education moderated the association between problematic familial alcohol use and binge drinking as this relationship was stronger for adolescents with no and one university-educated parent(s). Conclusions: Adolescents with problematic familial alcohol use fared worse with regards to all studied outcomes, except for school performance. Parental university education only moderated the association between problematic familial alcohol use and binge drinking. However, since problematic familial alcohol use was more common among adolescents with less than two university-educated parents, we argue that at the group level, this category may be more negatively affected by alcohol abuse in the family. Policy interventions could benefit from having a socioeconomic perspective on how children are affected by alcohol's harms to others.

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• Perceived problematic alcohol use in the family and adolescents’ stress-related complaints: examining the buffering role of the school’s degree of student focus as rated by its teachers

  2023. Sara Brolin Låftman (et al.). BMC Public Health 23

  Article

  Background A non-negligible proportion of children grow up with problematic alcohol use in the family. Problematic familial drinking can be regarded as a stressor, and prior studies have consistently reported poorer mental health among adolescents who are exposed. However, it is also of relevance to identify modifiable protective factors which may buffer against stress-related ill-health in this group of adolescents. One context where such factors may be present is the school. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between perceived problematic familial alcohol use and students’ stress-related complaints, and specifically to explore if the school’s degree of student focus can buffer against any such negative health consequences of problem drinking at home.

  Methods Data were drawn from four separate surveys, the Stockholm School Survey (SSS) and the Stockholm Teacher Survey (STS) conducted in 2014 and 2016 among 7,944 students (~ 15–16 years) and 2,024 teachers in 147 Stockholm senior-level school units. Perceived problematic familial alcohol use was measured by one item in the SSS. Stress-related complaints were captured by co-occurring somatic complaints and psychological distress, and reported by students in the SSS. The school’s student focus was measured by an index based on teachers’ ratings of four items in the STS. A set of covariates at the student and the school level were also included. Two-level binary logistic and linear regression models were performed.

  Results Perceived problematic familial alcohol use was linked with an increased likelihood of reporting co-occurring somatic complaints as well as psychological distress. Cross-level interactions revealed that the association between perceived problematic familial alcohol use and co-occurring somatic complaints was weaker among students attending schools with stronger teacher-rated student focus. Regarding psychological distress, the association was weaker for students attending schools with intermediate or strong teacher-rated student focus, compared with those attending schools with weaker teacher-rated student focus.

  Conclusions The findings provide support for the assumption that favourable conditions in schools can buffer against negative health consequences of problematic conditions in the family, thus serving a compensatory role.

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• The Constant Gap: Parenthood Premiums in Sweden 1968–2010

  2021. Magnus Bygren, Michael Gähler, Charlotta Magnusson. Social Forces 100 (1), 137-168

  Article

  We know that parenthood has different consequences for men’s and women’s careers. Still, the research remains inconclusive on the question of whether this is mainly a consequence of a fatherhood premium, a motherhood penalty, or both. A common assumption is that women fall behind in terms of pay when they become mothers.

  Based on longitudinal data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU), and individual fixed-effects models, we examine the support for this assumption by mapping the size of parenthood effects on wages during the years 1968–2010. During this period, Swedish women’s labor supply increased dramatically, dual-earner family policies were institutionalized, and society’s norms on the gendered division of labor changed. We describe the development of parenthood effects on wages during this transformative period.

  Our results indicate that both genders benefit from a gross parenthood premium, both at the beginning of the period and in recent years, but the size of this premium is larger for men. Individual fixed-effects models indicate that the wage premium is mainly the result of parents’ increased labor market investments. Controlling for these, women suffer from a small motherhood penalty early in the period under study whereas parenthood is unrelated to women’s wages in later years and to men’s wages throughout the period. Neither for men nor for women do we find a statistically significant period change in the parenthood effects. Instead, patterns are remarkably stable over time given the radical changes in family policies and norms that took place during the period examined.

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• Internalising and externalising problems during adolescence and the subsequent likelihood of being Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) among males and females

  2021. Stephanie Plenty, Charlotta Magnusson, Sanna Brolin Låftman. SSM - Population Health 15

  Article

  Mental health problems are associated with a greater risk of being Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) during young adulthood. Yet evidence on the extent to which self-reported mental health problems precede males' and females’ NEET status and on the potential pathways linking mental health problems to NEET is lacking. This study examines the longitudinal associations that internalising and externalising problems during adolescence share with the risk of being NEET in young adulthood, with a focus on the mediating role of school performance. Data comes from a representative sample of 4,452 Swedish youth (51% females) who provided information on internalising and externalising problems at age 14–15 years. Information on secondary school grades (age 15–16 years), completion of upper secondary school (age 20–21 years) and NEET status at 21–22 years were drawn from administrative registers. Overall, 6% of participants were NEET at 21–22 years of age and rates were higher for those who had internalising and externalising problems at age 14–15 years. A series of gender-stratified multivariate regression models showed that for both genders, greater internalising and externalising problems predicted lower school grades and a reduced likelihood of upper secondary school completion. However, externalising problems were associated with an increased risk of being NEET for males, while internalising problems were associated with a higher likelihood of being NEET for females. The effects of externalising and internalising problems for males and females, respectively, were partially mediated by school performance. The findings indicate that mental health problems in adolescence are associated with exclusion from the labour market and education in early adulthood, but that internalising and externalising problems represent different risks for males and females. Furthermore, school performance in comprehensive and upper secondary school helps explain links between mental health problems and subsequent NEET status.

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• Flexible time - but is the time owned? Family friendly and family unfriendly work arrangements, occupational gender composition and wages: a test of the mother-friendly job hypothesis in Sweden

  2021. Charlotta Magnusson. Community, Work and Family 24 (3), 291-314

  Article

  The relationship between gender, working conditions, occupational gender composition and wages is investigated to test the support for the mother-friendly job hypothesis in the family-friendly welfare state of Sweden. The Swedish level-of-living survey (LNU2010) is used to measure two dimensions of working conditions: flexibility and time-consuming work. The findings do not support the notion that women's work is more family-friendly as neither women in general nor mothers have more flexibility than men. Furthermore, female dominated occupations have, in comparison with other occupations, less flexible work arrangements. Instead, gender-integrated occupations have the most flexible work arrangement. Time-consuming work is also most common in gender integrated occupations. Flexibility and time consuming work largely go hand in hand and are both positively associated with wages and also more common in the service class. Finally, women are not economically compensated for their job characteristics in the same extent as men, especially not for their time-consuming work which partially account for the gender wage gap. Taken together the findings counters the notion that the remaining gender wage gap largely is due to women avoiding time consuming work or choosing flexibility. Instead it seems like women are compensated less regardless of their job characteristics.

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• 40 Years of Gender Inequality among Men and Women in High-Prestige occupations – Does the Story Differ among the Young?

  2019. Charlotta Magnusson, Magnus Nermo. Gender, Age and Inequality in the Professions

  Chapter

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• Self-reported mental health problems in adolescence and occupational prestige in young adulthood

  2019. Charlotta Magnusson, Sara Brolin Loftman. Children and youth services review 101, 174-180

  Article

  Many studies have reported a negative association between mental health problems and school performance and some studies have shown long-term negative consequences of such health problems, especially in relation to education. However, less is known about the link between different types of self-reported mental health problems in adolescence and occupational prestige in young adulthood.

  Using prospective survey data collected among 10–18-year-olds who were followed up after ten years (n = 605), the present study investigated, firstly, whether different types of self-reported mental health problems in adolescence – i.e., psychological and psychosomatic complaints, aggression and concentration difficulties – were associated with occupational prestige in young adulthood even after adjusting for childhood socioeconomic conditions; secondly, whether any such associations were partly or fully accounted for by differences in school performance; and thirdly, whether any associations between self-related mental health problems and occupational prestige varied by gender.

  Linear (OLS) regression analyses showed that self-reported concentration difficulties in adolescence were negatively associated with occupational prestige ten years later among both men and women. Aggression in adolescence was also negatively associated with later occupational prestige, but this association was accounted for by concentration difficulties. Psychological and psychosomatic complaints in adolescence were not however associated with occupational prestige in young adulthood. For both men and women, the association between concentration difficulties and occupational prestige was fully accounted for by differences in school grades.

  The findings indicate that self-reported concentration difficulties in adolescence have implications for individuals' occupational prestige in young adulthood among men and women alike. The association could be understood to be mediated by differences in school performance. Thus, to offer adolescents more equal chances of reaching high positions in the labor market, irrespective of their mental health status, it is important to provide adequate support during schooling.

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• Do Atypical Individuals Make A typical Choices? Examining How Gender Patterns in Personality Relate to Occupational Choice and Wages Among Five Professions in Sweden

  2018. Anne Grönlund, Charlotta Magnusson. Gender Issues 35 (2), 153-178

  Article

  The article provides a close-up picture of gender and personality in relation to the gender composition of occupation and the gender wage gap. Using a survey of newly graduated highly educated men and women in five occupations in Sweden (engineers, lawyers, police officers, social workers and psychologists, n ≈ 2400), we examine (a) if personality traits—measured as Big Five traits, risk-taking and self-esteem—differ between men and women (b) if differences in personality traits are systematically related to the gender composition of the occupation, (c) if individuals who have chosen an occupation dominated by the other gender are gender-atypical in their personalities and, (d) how personality traits are related to wages and the gender wage gap. The results show significant gender differences in agreeableness, emotional stability and perceived risk-taking. The male-dominated occupations score higher on risk-taking than those dominated by females, but the pattern for agreeableness is less clear and the scores on emotional stability are no higher in these occupations. Further we find that individuals who have chosen a gender-atypical occupation tend to display gender atypical personality traits. In line with previous research, we find that risk-taking and self-esteem are positively related to wages but these associations do not account for gender differences in wages. The valuation of personality traits does not vary systematically with the gender composition of the occupations but being agreeable has a more negative wage effect for women than for men.

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• From childhood to young adulthood

  2018. Charlotta Magnusson, Magnus Nermo. Journal of Youth Studies 21 (10), 1392-1410

  Article

  This study investigates the impact of self-esteem during childhood on men’s and women’s occupational prestige in young adulthood. By combining first-hand information from parents in the Swedish Level-of-Living surveys (LNU) 2000 and their children in the Child-LNU in 2000 and the follow-up study in LNU-2010, we are able to assess how self-esteem during adolescence is related to occupational prestige in adulthood. Multivariate analyses were used to determine whether associations between self-esteem (global and domain-specific) in childhood (aged 10–18 years) and occupational prestige in young adulthood (aged 20–28) exist and, if so, what the magnitudes of these associations are for each respective gender.

  For women, there is a positive association between confidence in mathematics and prestige, even when accounting for actual math grades. Global self-esteem is positively related to later occupational prestige as well. For men, self-esteem is unrelated to occupational prestige. Only actual performance in mathematics is important for men’s occupational achievements.

  These results indicate the importance of taking gender differences into account when investigating how self-esteem is related to outcomes in young adulthood. A possible implication is the importance of focusing on the development of self-esteem among children, particularly girls, in school.

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• A Scandinavian success story? Women’s labour market outcomes in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden

  2017. Anne Grönlund, Karin Halldén, Charlotta Magnusson. Acta Sociologica 60 (2), 97-119

  Article

  In current research, the extensive family policies of the Scandinavian countries have been problematized and described as hampering women's careers. However, mechanisms have been little investigated and the Scandinavian countries are often regarded as a single policy model. Based on an account of institutional variety we study gender gaps in hourly wages and access to authority positions in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and explore the importance of segregation, skills and work interruptions. The analysis uses pooled cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 2004 and 2010. The results show that gender gaps vary both in size and regarding the mechanisms producing them. In particular, we find that gender segregation has a radically different impact in the four countries. The analysis suggests that the mechanisms linking family policies to labour market outcomes are more complex than envisaged in the current debate and point to the importance of comparing seemingly similar countries.

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• Do health complaints in adolescence negatively predict the chance of entering tertiary education in young adulthood?

  2017. Sara Brolin Låftman, Charlotta Magnusson. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 45 (8), 878-885

  Article

  Background: Self-reported psychological and psychosomatic health complaints, such as nervousness, sadness, headache and stomach-ache, are common among adolescents, particularly among girls, and studies suggest that the prevalence has risen among adolescent girls during the last few decades. However, only a limited number of studies have investigated the potential long-term consequences of such health complaints. The aim of the current study was to assess whether psychological and psychosomatic health complaints in adolescence predict the chance of entering tertiary education in young adulthood among women and men. Methods: The data used are from the Swedish Young-LNU, which is based on a nationally representative sample with self-reported survey information from adolescents aged 10–18 years in 2000 and from the same individuals at ages 20–28 in 2010 (n=783). Information was also collected from parents and from official registers. Results: Linear probability models showed that self-reported psychological complaints in adolescence were associated with a lower chance of having entered tertiary education 10 years later. This association was accounted for by differences in grade point average (GPA), suggesting that GPA may mediate the association between psychological complaints and later education. The pattern was similar for both genders. Furthermore, among men, psychosomatic complaints in adolescence were significantly associated with a lower likelihood of having entered tertiary education 10 years later when adjusting for GPA and social class in adolescence. A similar but non-significant tendency was found among women. Conclusions: The findings suggest that health complaints in adolescence may have long-term consequences in terms of lower educational attainment.

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• Gender, Parenthood and Wage Differences

  2017. Charlotta Magnusson, Magnus Nermo. Social Indicators Research 131 (2), 797-816

  Article

  Using data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (2000, 2010), we investigate how the gender wage gap varies with occupational prestige and family status and also examine the extent to which this gap is explained by time-consuming working conditions. In addition, we investigate whether there is an association between parenthood, job characteristics and wage (as differentiated by gender). The analyses indicate that there are gender differences regarding prestige-based pay-offs among parents that are partly explained by fathers' greater access to employment characterized by time-consuming conditions. Separate analyses for men and women demonstrate the presence of a marriage wage premium for both genders, although only men have a parenthood wage premium. This fatherhood premium is however only present in high-prestigious occupations. Compared with childless men, fathers are also more advantaged in terms of access to jobs with time-consuming working conditions, but the wage gap between fathers and childless men is not explained by differences in access to such working conditions.

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• Stagnation only on the surface? The implications of skill and family responsibilities for the gender wage gap in Sweden, 1974–2010

  2017. Katarina Boye, Karin Halldén, Charlotta Magnusson. British Journal of Sociology 68 (4), 595-619

  Article

  The wage differential between women and men persists in advanced economies despite the inflow of women into qualified occupations in recent years. Using five waves of the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey (LNU), this paper explores the gender wage gap in Sweden during the 1974–2010 period overall and by skill level. The empirical analyses showed that the general gender wage gap has been nearly unchanged for the past 30 years. However, the gender difference in wage in less qualified occupations fell considerably, whereas the gender pay gap remained stable for men and women in qualified occupations. The larger significance of family responsibilities for wages in qualified occupations is one likely explanation for this result.

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• The gender wage gap in highly prestigious occupations

  2016. Charlotta Magnusson. Work, Employment and Society 30 (1), 40-58

  Article

  The gender wage gap within a highly prestigious occupation, the medical profession, is investigated both longitudinally and cross-sectionally using Swedish administrative data. This is done by investigating: to what extent the gender wage gap among physicians varies between fields of medicine (within-occupation segregation) and across family status; whether there is an association between parenthood and wages among physicians and, if so, whether there is a gender difference in this association; and changes in the gender wage gap among physicians over time. The results indicate a large overall gender wage difference for medical doctors. Even when gender differences in specialization are taken into account, men have higher wages than women do. For both men and women physicians, there is a positive association between parenthood and wages. The longitudinal analyses show that the gender wage gap among physicians was greater in 2007 than in 1975.

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• Family-friendly policies and women´s wages – is there a trade-off? Skill investments, occupational segregation and the gender pay gap in Germany, Sweden and the UK

  2016. Anne Grönlund, Charlotta Magnusson. European Societies 18 (1), 91-113

  Article

  Recent research has suggested that there is a trade-off between the ‘family-friendliness’ of jobs, occupations and welfare states on the one hand and women's relative wages on the other. In particular, the extensive family policies found in Scandinavia are thought to harm highly educated women by affecting occupational segregation and workplace skill development. In this article, we use pooled wage data from the European Social Survey of 2004 and 2010 to examine the mechanisms behind the gender wage gap in Germany, Sweden and the UK and compare the situation of high- and low-skilled employees. Our findings show that the gender wage gap among high-skilled employees in Sweden is larger than in the UK, but not larger than in Germany. Also, segregation and work-related training are no more important in Sweden than in the other countries. Another important finding is that the mechanisms behind the gender wage gap differ between high- and low-skilled employees in ways not predicted by the trade-off argument. In particular, the large unexplained wage gap among high-skilled employees provides new theoretical challenges.

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• Ojämlikhetens dimensioner : uppväxtvillkor, arbete och hälsa i Sverige.

  2014. Marie Evertsson, Charlotta Magnusson.

  Book (ed)

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