Economy, State or Culture?

Abstract

The proportion of women in top socioeconomic groups (managerial and professional jobs) is, apart from the size of the wages gap between women and men, the best measure of the degree of gender inequality in paid work. While there has been a remarkable quantitative expansion in female labourmarket participation in Switzerland and elsewhere, the proportion of women in positions with high-level decision-making power remains small. This article analyses the regional variations in gender inequality in Swiss employment for two different spatial dimensions: (a) 106 labour-market regions; and (b) four types of regions according to their position in the centre-periphery hierarchy. The results show that the proportion of women in positions of authority is considerably higher in the French and Italian-speaking regions than in similar German-speaking regions. Do these variations result from different cultural norms and values in different parts of Switzerland concerning gender relations? Are the French and Italian-speaking parts characterized by a more egalitarian gender culture? Or are there different concepts of the role of the welfare state inside Switzerland? Do the French and Italian-speaking cantons for instance offer better public provision to facilitate women's paid work? Or do these variations between the linguistic regions mainly conceal economic structures, for example different sectoral or branch structures in employment? This article discusses and assesses the usefulness of these three different theoretical approaches for providing an explanation of regional variations in gender inequalities in Swiss employment.