Jessica Nisén
The Nordic countries tend to be seen as forerunners in promoting gender equality, which has been facilitated by the provision of comprehensive family policies in these countries. Such policies include job-protected and income-compensated family leave, universal access to affordable and publicly subsidised childcare to enable mothers and fathers to return to full-time work after childbirth, as well as child-related income support (Daly & Ferragina, 2018). As a result, women’s labour force participation rates are very similar to men’s and dual-earner families are very common (Ferragina, 2019).
Despite these progressive features of the Nordic countries, gender inequality remains in labour market outcomes such as wages, working hours, and representation in positions of authority (Ferragina, 2019; Grönlund et al., 2017). Labour markets in these countries also remain segregated by gender (Hook et al., 2022). In 2023, women in Finland and Sweden earned 16.1 per cent and 7.3 per cent less than men, respectively, in terms of median wages of full-time workers (OECD, 2025).
Notwithstanding the emphasis on work-family reconciliation in Nordic family policies, parenthood remains a fundamental source of gender differences in wages and annual earnings (Cools & Strøm, 2016; Nisén et al., 2022) and positions of authority (Bygren & Gähler, 2012) here as well, although the differences tend to be less pronounced than elsewhere, at least in terms of wages (Cukrowska-Torzewska & Matysiak, 2020).
It has even been suggested that parenthood plays an increasing role in the remaining gender gaps in the labour market (Kleven et al., 2019). In that case, research should closely monitor the inequalities among parents.
Despite the widespread interest in economic gender (in)equality, accumulated earnings have received less attention in these discussions (see, for instance, de Castro Galvao, 2022). Evidence on gender gaps in accumulated earnings in different contexts is limited. However, the focus on accumulation over the life course is important because advantages and disadvantages can accumulate to produce larger differences between groups than those measured at a single point in time would suggest (DiPrete & Eirich, 2006).
A comparative study of earnings accumulated up to midlife
We looked at the accumulated midlife earnings of women and men born in 1974–1975, using a 25-year measure of pre-tax earnings based on Finnish and Swedish administrative registers. We calculated the average cumulative earnings of all permanent resident women and men, regardless of their labour market status, separately for groups differentiated by their characteristics measured at mid-life.
We expected to find larger gender gaps in Finland than in Sweden, especially as family policies in Sweden are more strongly geared towards gender equality.
Our results show that in Finland and Sweden, women earned on average 32 per cent and 29 per cent less than men by the age of 44. These gaps are remarkable, especially as women in these cohorts are more highly educated than men. Due to this educational difference, the gender gaps within educational groups, as shown in Figure 1 and Figure, 2 also tend to be larger than the average gaps in the whole population.
Figure 1 shows that in both countries the gender gap in accumulated earnings was higher for groups with lower educational attainment and a higher number of children. The average gender gap in accumulated earnings in Finland was 44%, 40% and 35% for the low, medium and high educational groups. The corresponding gaps in Sweden were 46%, 33% and 28%. In Sweden, the low-educated stand out more than in Finland, but they make up a smaller proportion of the total study cohort.
At all levels of educational attainment, the gender gap varied considerably by number of children, especially in Finland (Figure 1). It was smallest between childless women and childless men: 6% in Finland and 16% in Sweden. This small gap did not result from childless women earning more than other women. Rather, childlessness was associated with relatively low accumulated earnings, especially for men and for women and men with low educational attainment.
For parents with one child, the gap was similar in the two countries (25–26%), but for parents with two or more children it was higher in Finland. For parents with two children — the most common number of children — the gap was 35% in Finland and 31% in Sweden. For parents with three or more children, the gap reached 49% and 39% in Finland and Sweden respectively.
Large gaps among parents with three or more children are strongly influenced by the lower earnings of women in this group compared to women with fewer children, especially in Finland. Among men, however, those with two to three children have the highest earnings of all men in both countries, regardless of their level of education.
Figure 1 Gender gap in average earnings accumulated by midlife by number of children and educational attainment in a Finland b Sweden.
Figure 2 Gender gap in average earnings accumulated by
midlife by number and timing of children, and educational attainment in a Finland b Sweden.
Figure 2 also shows that among parents, a later age at first birth was typically associated with a smaller gender gap in accumulated earnings by midlife. This finding held for most groups differentiated by educational attainment and number of children. For example, among parents with two children, the gap among the highly educated was 40% for early parents and 34% for late parents in Finland (35% and 27% respectively in Sweden).
Figure 2 also shows that among parents, a later age at first birth was typically associated with a smaller gender gap in accumulated earnings by midlife. This finding held for most groups differentiated by educational attainment and number of children. For example, among parents with two children, the gap among the highly educated was 40% for early parents and 34% for late parents in Finland (35% and 27% respectively in Sweden).
The results presented above are based on labour earnings and do not include social transfers. The gaps were reduced by an average of four percentage points in both countries when employment-related benefits (parental and sick leave benefits and home care allowance in Finland) were also taken into account. Despite some differences in the rate of reduction between groups, our main interpretations of the variation in the gender gap remained unchanged.
Finland and Sweden: Similar but different
Even in the Nordic countries, which are considered forerunners in gender equality, mothers earn less than fathers until midlife. This suggests that the structural mechanisms that produce gender differences in earnings over the life course are also rooted in the Nordic welfare states, and particularly in Finland. The gender gaps found in this study can be seen as remarkable given that the dual-earner model is prevalent in both Finland and Sweden, albeit to somewhat different degrees.
However, based on limited evidence from other countries, the gender gaps in accumulated earnings as found in our study are less pronounced than those found in other countries (see, for instance, de Castro Galvao, 2022). This is consistent with the Nordic welfare states’ comparatively strong emphasis on reconciling work and family life for mothers.
The gender gaps in accumulated earnings found in this study are larger than recent cross-sectional estimates of gender gaps in employment or wages of full-time workers alone for Finland and Sweden (OECD, 2025). Part of the difference is due to the fact that, in a longitudinal perspective, we also observe time points in which gender equality in these respects was more pronounced than today. However, this is unlikely to be the whole story. Differences between mothers and fathers in the use of family leave and patterns of paid work (e.g. working hours) are also likely to influence the extent of the gender gap in accumulated earnings at midlife.
In our view, the somewhat more pronounced gender gaps in Finland compared with Sweden are likely to be related to the greater gender asymmetry in the use of family leave and the longer periods of family leave supported by the home care allowance in Finland. Indeed, the home care allowance system distinguishes Finland from the other Nordic countries (Helske et al., 2025). Previous studies suggest that extended leave rights have a limited impact on gender pay gap, with less positive effects observed for longer leave durations (Ferragina, 2019; Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2017).
In addition, attitudes that are more supportive of childcare at home (Duvander et al., 2021), as well as greater occupational segregation by gender (Hook et al., 2022), in Finland may also play a role in the cross-country differences. The relative importance of these different factors for the country differences in gender gaps in accumulated earnings merits further investigation where possible.
Our analysis focused on the first half of the life course, which is the target of many welfare state policies, including family policies. Further research should investigate the extent to which earnings from midlife onwards compensate for or widen gender gaps accumulated at younger ages.
This blog post is based on the research article: Nisén, J., Erlandsson, A., & Jalovaara, M. (2024). Gendered Relationship of Childbearing with Earnings Accumulated by Midlife in Two Nordic Welfare States. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 1-23.
For more information, contact: jessica.nisen(at)utu.fi
The writer, Jessica Nisén is a University Research Fellow at the INVEST Research Flagship Centre. She currently works on two projects: Family Formation in Flux – Causes, Consequences and Possible Futures (FLUX), funded by the Strategic Research Council of Finland, and Determinants of Later and Forgone Parenthood in the Nordic Countries (NORDPARENT), funded by the Danish ROCKWOOL Foundation. In FLUX, she studies demographic, social, and economic factors behind changing fertility and family dynamics, with a focus on Finland. In NORDPARENT, she is the lead researcher for the Finnish context. Jessica is also affiliated as a visiting researcher with the University of Helsinki and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.
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