Women’s Careers: Challenges and Opportunities in the Swedish Energy Industry

Sammanfattning: Practices to promote gender equality and equal opportunities for men and women have become an important part of many organizations' agenda. However, women are still experiencing challenges in career advancement to a larger extent than men. This is due to structural, cultural and societal factors and other types of discrimination against women. This thesis aims to explore the experienced challenges and opportunities for career advancement by women in the Swedish energy industry, a male dominated industry. Although Sweden is a leading country regarding gender equality, women are still paid less and are exposed to discrimination and subordination. The energy industry has made efforts to improve gender equality, focusing on wage and gender distribution, but there is still more to be done to achieve equal opportunities for men and women. This thesis combines qualitative and quantitative methods and presents empirical data on women’s experiences of career and its challenges and opportunities. The empirical data is based on a survey with female respondents that are members of an organization that promotes gender equality within the energy industry. The findings indicate that the women experience both structural and cultural discrimination in their organizations, where they often are subordinated to men. Furthermore, results also indicate that men empower other men in career advancement in the organizations. Moreover, the current gender order together with gender structures create challenges for women in their careers in male dominated industries. However, there are situations where the respondents describe how they benefit from their gender minority situation, indicating opportunities for career advancement.