Angelina lives in Sweden, but she grew up in Uzbekistan, a secular post-Soviet country with patriarchal traditions. She also lived in Syria for a while having witnessed the cross-cultural differences in women's role in society.

"I remember, when I studied in Uzbekistan we had crafts lesson in school and it was separate for girls and boys. Girls were learning sewing and cooking, while boys were making something from wood and metal. My child has also crafts lesson here in Swedish school and he decides what he wants to do, either cook apple pie or makes something from wood," she says.

Indeed, gendered views and stereotypes were depriving women of empowerment for a long time; the social environment in family and educational institutions construct these views. While the world has achieved progress towards gender equality and women empowerment, especially in education attainment, health and survival, there is still a lot to achieve in terms of economic and political empowerment of women. According to the latest Global Gender Gap report by the World Economic Forum, there are only 17 women heads of state across 149 nations, only 18% of ministers and 24% of parliament members are women globally. Only one-third of women around the world hold managerial positions [1.1].

Yet, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland, commonly known as Nordic countries, are completely another example. They forge ahead in the rankings in gender equality for a long time and are outperforming many European countries and the USA. According to Global Gender Gap report, Iceland is the most gender-equal country. It has closed over 85% of its overall gender gap. It is followed by Norway (83.5%), Sweden and Finland (82.2%). Denmark is ranked 13^th but it is also a leader by many parameters of gender parity [1.2].

"Nordic women are workwise among the most active in the world. 74 percent of women in the Nordic countries are active in the labour market. That is well above the OECD average of 66 percent", says Julie Rokkjær Birch, director of Women's Museum in Aarhus, one of few museums on women's history.

It is portrayed that the main causes of "Nordic Women Heaven" are the merits of the welfare state system, push of gender equality on political agenda as well as historical background. Yet, gender equality is ensured due to women domination in the public sector, not in private. The social system provides for equal participation of men and women in the market and Nordic governments introduced successful parental leave system for both parents, like longest and highest-paid paternal leave. There are also quotas for women in the political sphere. Governments in Nordic countries are feminist: Sweden became the first government to use the word "feminist" to describe a policy approach. Women issues are represented in all legislations in these countries.

"Equality needs a national push and it should not be taken for granted" is the motto of Nordic governments who not once stated that the European Union should also include gender policy on political agenda. The governmental concern on gender equality also ensured women leadership but in the public sector. Nordic Women are still lacking in the top and intermediate management positions in business, but the solution is to abstain from stereotypical gender roles including in jobs. Finally, Nordic countries have a very long history of success in gender equality thanks to feminist movements. "Common for all Nordic countries has been a strong youth revolt and women's movements in the 70s which fostered new legislations such as equal pay, contraception rights, maternity leave, free porn etc," Julie Rokkjær Birch adds.

Although all this helped Nordic countries to achieve high results in gender equality, it was rarely discussed that education model which persists from the last century brought up generations of well-educated people for whom equality is an indispensable part of the culture. They embraced this model due to historical openness to breakthroughs including social welfare itself. Nordic people have also a high level of trust to each other which means that women are trusted to empower, and education model is also connected to the trust level. Furthermore, media outlets rarely point on the effect of religion on gender equality and what effect the social welfare system has on church membership and education policy.

All these specific characteristics have a connection with fostering gender equality in Nordic countries and making them the frontrunners. It is commonly known that social welfare provides free education to people in Nordic states but to what extent the socialization within the specific education model leads to gender equality and what is specific about it. Thus, the question arises: why Nordic countries are leaders in gender equality?

The wind of changes has always been going along with Nordic history. They embraced Protestantism when the catholic church was ruling in Europe. They were among the first who adopted liberal values and social democracy. Finally, Nordic women were among the first to get rights to vote. Ingvaldsen et al. in "Democracy and the welfare state: the Nordic nations since 1800" write that the developments are specific to the Nordic region [2]. Their political system differs in the tradition of stability, flexibility and adaptability which still flourish. For instance, according to The European Commission's edition of the Innovation Scoreboard, Nordic countries are leading in the ratings on innovations [3]. This openness to changes and adaptability of Nordic people led them to embrace social welfare model in 20^th and make it in their own way. The traits of the model led to the promotion of equality and equity in comprehensive education.

Yet, not only social welfare itself influenced the creation of specific Nordic education model. It is also a child-centeredness policy which was first introduced in Sweden in the last century. This model emphasizes the importance of childhood and puts a child to the focus, which means to ensure children's rights and maximize the provision of opportunities guaranteed by state policy. So, what is special in the Nordic education model?

Brunila & Edström in the article "The famous Nordic Gender Equality and what's Nordic about it–Gender equality in Finnish and Swedish education" state that Nordic education model not only provides equal educational opportunities regardless of gender, social class and geographical background ensured by social welfare system but also high-quality knowledge acquisition as well as belonging to a social community as the development of student is propriety [4]. The university students also get a lot of merits from the system as it is free for everyone.

Nordic countries reached 99%-100% literacy for both genders already several decades ago and they have equal access to education on all levels [5]. The equality which is upbrought from early stages of childhood undoubtedly leads to better performance in gender equality in future stages in terms of economic and political empowerment of women. Indeed, the Nordic education model helped achieve gender equality. As Cardona López et al. state, it is based on the principle of education for all. The model seeks to diminish inequalities. The promotion of gender equality was adopted as an objective of education in the late 1970s and early1980s [6]. "The level of education of women is high. Historically, Women entering the higher education systems towards the end of the 19th century kickstarted the fight for the right to vote", notes Julie Rokkjær Birch.

However, it is too simplified to say that education model leads to gender equality. For understanding Nordic example, it is important to look at another social aspect where these countries are also showing the highest results – trust. Not only trust in government but trust between people is the main source of social capital which values social ties and shared norms for well-being and economic efficiency of the societies. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Harvard and Michigan Universities scholars, theorize the gender and social capital and this theoretical case could be applied towards Nordic countries. They draw upon Putnam's theory of social capital which is defined "as connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them" [7]. It is also stated that social capital has a connection with political participation and effective governance what could be transferred to the political and economic empowerment of women.

The scholars note that a high level of education leads to empowerment but also dependent on social capital. Thus, women who lag behind men in education are less active in producing social capital what means that with the influence of trust education leads to more engagement of women. In turn, social capital which consists of interpersonal trust influences integrating people with diverse backgrounds and values and promotes tolerance. Social capital has an effect on both education and active engagement. This can be connected to the interpersonal trust in Nordic countries, which according to OECD "How's life" report is the highest there. With the higher level of interpersonal trust, the influence of the education model to gender equality progress is enhancing.

Angelina agrees that in Sweden, trust accelerated the progress in gender equality and education. "I think that people indeed trust each other very strongly and it helps us to trust in our education system and women to be in higher positions in government and business", she adds.

Interestingly, New Zealand is also among countries with a high level of interpersonal trust and at the top of Gender Gap report having the 7th place in the ranking. The country's education model varies in the Nordic countries but similarly, most of the children attend public schools which are free for all. By contrast, Greece, Italy, Hungary are having the lowest score in interpersonal trust in OECD report while being ranked 78th, 70th, 102nd in gender equality according to the Gender Gap report. Remarkably, Greece and Italy are among the top countries worldwide for social spending, but the rankings of gender equality are still low which probably signify that social welfare is not the only reason of progress in gender equality.

Social welfare, undoubtedly, intensified the achievements in gender equality in Nordic states. One of the possible effects might be through secularization of these countries. Nordic societies are traditionally homogenous and most of the population are Christians but for the last decade, the Church saw a decline in members across all 5 Nordic states. The social welfare benefits which Nordic people enjoy may actually be the cause of this trend. A study by Verweij et al. showed that when social welfare is better provided, the country is less religious [8].

According to official statistics, in 2005 there were 4 million members of the Church of Norway and in 2017 it decreased to 3.7 million. In Denmark, the percentage of church members decreased from 83.3% in 2005 to 75.9% in 2017. Iceland and Finland saw a 12% decrease in church members while Sweden 17% for the same period of time [ 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. The plummet in church membership signifies the decrease of the importance of this religious institution. Kenis & Pasture state that the basis of Judeo-Christian religious tradition is to flourish in a masculine culture [14]. Although the Lutheran church was always considered to be more inclined towards femininity and Sweden has the first female archbishop, secularism was always a way towards less gendered views.

Thus, the decline of religion importance evidenced by a decrease in members probably leads to women empowerment which means better gender equality to the benefit of women. To compare, the gender gap in Nordic countries for 2006-2018 was also closing. Sweden improved Gender gap index from 0.81 to 0.82. Norway – from 0.799 to 0.835, Finland 0.795 to 0.82, Iceland from 0.78 to 0.858, Denmark 0.74 to 0.77. This could be the evidence to assume that decrease of religious factor also influenced the success in gender equality, in other words, women empowerment.

Nordic countries have not fully closed the gender gap in political and economic empowerment, but they are definitely ahead of many other developed states. Their openness to changes and adaptability led to embracing unique social welfare model which created many opportunities including in education sphere with the emphasis on children and their development. Generous social welfare also led to the decline of traditional religious institutions – Church, which has some dogmas based on gendered views. Breaking stereotypes and empowerment helped Nordic women achieve high results in closing the gap, and other countries can definitely learn from them. The main lesson might be that equality and equity should be deployed on the national level in the education system, especially in pre-schools and schools were children start to form their character and socialize. The focus on children and breaking of gendered views when upbringing a child can make them more ready to break stereotypes which deprive both girls and boys succeed in all the spheres in future.

Angelina goes back from work and her husband already came home playing with kids. They enjoy their cosy evening together and praise the benefits of Nordic equal society…



References

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