ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the major gender equality policies in Nordic countries, and shows how they operate in practice. It focuses on Norway as a detailed case study to analyse the accomplishments and challenges of the Scandinavian gender model. Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is a composite index measuring gender inequality in three basic dimensions of empowerment, economic participation and decision-making, political participation and decision-making and power over economic resources. This chapter chooses to downplay differences between Scandinavian countries in order to clarify the common elements of their gender policies. Social class and educational level continue to create crucial divisions in Norwegian women's interests and preferences with regard to family and employment. The unions and social democratic parties grew rapidly and a stable parliamentary alliance was formed between the Social Democratic parties, representing the working classes, and centrist parties, representing farmer.
