The new matriarchy? Gender, representation and power in Sweden

Women have been the majority in Swedish higher education since the late 1970s. In the autumn term of 2023, women made up 61% of registered students and men 39%. The gap has widened: from just over 4 percentage points in 1977 to about 23 points in 2023 (UKÄ).

Women also graduate faster. In 2022/23, 67% of women completed their degree within the normal study time, against 62% of men.

But the lead is unevenly distributed. Women are 85% of nursing students and 86% on the social work programme, while the share of women on the five-year engineering (civilingenjör) programme was 32% in 2023 — up from 24% in 1997. Educational choices co-vary strongly with the gender-segregated labour market the rest of this analysis is about; which drives which is not settled by these figures.

The phrase "the new matriarchy" comes from the 2026 book of that name (Karneval) by Erik J. Olsson, professor of theoretical philosophy, and Catharina Grönqvist Olsson. According to the publisher's summary, the authors argue that women are a majority of employees in around 80% of public agencies, that the state therefore fails its own gender-equality objective of an even distribution of power, and that this numerical dominance affects how the state decides in areas such as defence, policing and the justice system.

The thesis thus has three parts: (1) a mapping of gender balance, (2) an interpretation that a numerical majority equals power, and (3) an assumption that gender balance changes state decisions. The three parts have very different evidentiary standing, and it is that difference this page tests.

Sverigefakta takes no position on the book's conclusions. We test the claims that can be checked against official statistics and state openly where the evidence stops. Even a sympathetic reviewer (Fokus, June 2026) notes that the book's examples are selected to support the thesis and that there is no counterfactual to compare against.

A matriarchy, in the strict sense, is a society where women hold formal power over institutions, property and lineage. Nothing reported here meets that definition. Sweden has had one woman prime minister — Magdalena Andersson (Social Democrats), November 2021 to October 2022; every other head of government since 1917 has been a man.

What can be established is narrower: in certain institutional environments — education, municipal welfare services, parts of the public administration — women are a numerical majority at management level too. In others — listed-company top management, professorships, construction — men remain in the majority. About capital ownership as such this page's data say nothing; they concern CEO, chair and board posts, not voting rights or equity stakes.

The headline is therefore a question. The analysis tests the claim against official statistics rather than confirming or dismissing it in advance.

Statistics Sweden's occupational register for 2024 shows that preschool teacher is the most female-dominated large occupation in Sweden: 62,280 women against 2,430 men, i.e. 96% women. Childcare workers are at 91%, assistant nurses in home care and elderly care at 87%, compulsory-school teachers at 74% and care assistants at 71%.

Among Sweden's 30 largest occupations, the gender balance was even (40/60) in only four. The skew runs both ways: 2% of carpenters were women, and 4% of vehicle mechanics and installation electricians.

In practice a child in Swedish preschool meets an almost entirely female staff group, while a construction crew is almost entirely male. Both patterns belong to the same labour market and are closely linked to educational and occupational choice, but the distribution figures do not show why those choices look as they do.

It is in the municipal world that the picture of a female institutional majority is strongest. According to SKR's staff statistics for November 2025 there were just over 50,900 managers in municipalities and regions. In the municipalities, 73% of all managers were women.

Female dominance narrows up the hierarchy but does not disappear: 75% of first-line managers, 67% of middle managers and 56% of top managers in municipalities are women. In the regions, 54% of top managers are women.

This is the most concrete objection to the picture of uniformly male power: the municipal sector decides on schools, social services and elderly care — and there the management ranks are female-dominated all the way up to department-head level.

Two figures about the state are often used as if they contradicted each other. According to the Swedish Agency for Public Management (Statskontoret), women made up 53% of employees in the state sector in 2024 and men 47%; the share has stayed between 53% and 54% since 2021. That measures people across the state as a whole.

The claim that women are a majority in around 80% of agencies is a different measure: it counts agencies, not employees. Because the male-dominated agencies — above all in defence, where 72% of employees are men — are few but large, most agencies can have a female majority while the state as a whole stays close to an even split. Both statements can be correct at the same time; they answer different questions.

Differences between fields are large. Women are 66% of employees in general public administration and social protection, and 63% in culture, leisure and religion, while men are 72% in defence. In business, environment and community development the balance is even. In municipalities 75% of employees are women and in regions 78% (Statskontoret, figures for 2024–2025).

Higher education shows the opposite. Although women have long been the majority among students and doctoral candidates, 33% of professors were women and 67% men in 2024 (UKÄ/SCB). Professors are the academic category with the least even gender balance.

The trend points one way: the share of women professors has risen by 19 percentage points since 2001. Between 2023 and 2024 it stood still.

Younger categories are more balanced — 45% women in early-career posts and 61% among adjunkt lecturers. That professorships lag is partly a cohort effect: professors are recruited from a generation that graduated twenty to thirty years ago.

After the 2022 election, 46% of members of parliament were women, 49% of regional councillors and 43% of municipal councillors. That is within or near the 40/60 interval normally used as a measure of even gender balance.

The closer one gets to executive power, the more skewed the picture becomes. Women made up 35% of municipal executive board chairs (2023). Among the chairs of parliament's 15 standing committees, the share of women was 20% according to Statistics Sweden's 2024 gender equality handbook — a position that had long had an even balance.

Statistics Sweden's own conclusion in the 2024 edition was that gender equality had moved backwards in some areas rather than improving linearly. That is an important corrective to the assumption that the trend only runs one way.

AllBright's 2025 Scandinavia report shows that 36% of board members in Swedish listed companies are women, but only 11% of CEOs — a share that has barely moved in five years. Norway, which legislated quotas in 2006, reaches 41% women on listed boards without that carrying through to CEO level.

This is where the word 'matriarchy' falls apart. Economic power — ownership, capital allocation, CEO posts in listed companies — remains male-dominated on a scale with no counterpart in municipal administration.

AllBright's figures are privately collected statistics, not official ones, and should be read as an industry survey rather than a register.

Testing the thesis in three parts: the mapping of gender balance largely holds; the step from numerical majority to power does not hold as a definition; the claim that the gender balance changes what the state decides is unsupported by any study we can cite.

The conclusion is not that Sweden has swapped a patriarchy for a matriarchy. It is that power is divided by sector: women dominate numerically in the education system, in welfare occupations and in municipal management, while men dominate in listed-company top management and the professoriate.

Because both patterns exist at once, almost any single figure can be used as evidence for opposite theses. Those who want to show female dominance cite preschools and municipal managers; those who want to show male dominance cite listed-company CEOs and professorships. Both citations are correct and both are incomplete.

Competing explanations for the same distributions include educational and occupational choice, the sector structure of the labour market (welfare is publicly financed and female-dominated; capital-intensive industry is not), cohort effects in slow-turnover positions such as professorships, pay and working-time structures, and recruitment practices. This material cannot separate them, and no ranking between them follows from distribution figures.

What would be required to test the strongest version of the thesis — that the gender balance changes the decisions of the state — is comparable decision situations with varying gender composition, individual-level data on decision-makers linked to outcomes, and controls for mandate, legislation and time period. No such study exists for Swedish public administration. Until it does, that step remains a hypothesis, not a finding.