Recent studies on occupational structure and individual mobility suggest that the number of categories in the occupational structure vastly exceeds the limited number of classes in commonly applied schemes (Cheng and Park, 2020; Lin and Hung, 2022; Toubøl and Larsen, 2017; Villarreal, 2020). This discrepancy underscores the inadequacy of coarse class schemes in capturing the complexities of occupational structures. We argue that a continuous, multi-dimensional representation offers a nuanced and efficient tool for understanding research questions across diverse topics such as gendered occupational choices, political views and values, intergenerational transmission of occupational attributes, and the nature and trajectory of structural labor change.Our contribution is to adopt a methodology that allows for the continuous differentiation of occupations across multiple dimensions, rather than confining them to discrete clusters. This approach aligns with the longstanding sociological tradition of representing occupational structures using continuous scales (Duncan, 1961; Cain and Treiman, 1981; Ganzeboom et al., 1992; Chan and Goldthorpe, 2004; Goldthorpe and Hope, 1974; Hadden et al., 2004; Lambert and Griffiths, 2018; Le Grand and Tåhlin, 2013; Prandy and Lambert, 2003; Treiman, 1977).While much of this research focuses on unraveling a primary vertical dimension of occupational structure, linked to class, status, prestige, and educational requirements, others highlight also the horizontal nature of occupational structure by considering gender as a second dimension (England, 1992; Magnusson and Tåhlin, 2023; Shu et al., 1996; McLaughlin, 1978; Wood and Eagly, 2012a). These two dimensions have also been put forward as intertwined in the sense that the dimension of gender also includes a vertical order where men's jobs are seen as more status-worthy (e.g. Charles and Grusky, 2005; Steinberg, 1990). Thus, our expectation is that the occupational structure from an individual mobility viewpoint is governed by at least two dimensions: socio-economic status and a division by gender.The trajectory of literature on occupational structure has evolved from the broad class models like the Erikson's and Goldthorpe's (1992; cf. Wright, 1997) to Weeden's and Grusky's (2005) micro class approach, and more recently, to the analysis of specific occupational traits enabled by the Occupational Information Network (O∗Net) (e.g. Levanon and Grusky, 2016). However, the main weakness of many recent contributions on the topic, particularly those reliant on O∗Net, lies in their preconceived categorization of work content and skills as either masculine or feminine, and their conflation of these traits with a vertical grading of occupations. In contrast, our approach returns to the foundational principles of social stratification research by employing an inductive methodology that distinguishes the core of occupational structure, emphasizing mobility over theoretical preconceptions. We hence rely on the Weberian concept of ‘social class’ for our conceptualization of occupational structure, as encompassing those economic situations between which individual (and generational) mobility is easy and typical (Weber, 1978, p. 57).We ask: What is the number of dimensions that can accurately and parsimoniously represent the occupational structure? Do the main dimensions in the analysis reflect occupational segregation in terms of status and gender? We leverage a comprehensive, nationally encompassing database capturing the majority of occupational changes in the Swedish labor market between 2001 and 2013 to answer these questions. We construct a distance matrix for 95 occupations, which is reduced using Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) techniques (Borg and Groenen, 2005). Subsequently, we rigorously test whether externally derived variables representing occupational status and gender can effectively substitute for the empirically derived dimensions, using constrained MDS.Our findings challenge traditional models by revealing a three-dimensional, continuously rectangular occupational structure. This structure is primarily organized along three distinct dimensions. The first is a vertical dimension, strongly associated with socio-economic status, which we interpret as representing the level of "Educational Certification" required to enter an occupation.The second dimension captures a distinction along a "Nature vs. Urbanity" spectrum. Here, "Nature" refers to occupations involved in extracting resources (e.g., food, materials, crafts, energy) or a scientific understanding of natural phenomena (e.g., physics, biology). By contrast, "Urbanity" encompasses roles more closely tied to administrative, service-oriented, or industrial settings.The third dimension distinguishes between "Caring vs. Technical" roles. Caring roles involve providing emotional support, consideration, and guidance, while technical roles are centered on machinery, production, and engineering. Although this dimension is correlated with the proportion of females in these occupations, our analysis demonstrates that gender segregation in a physical sense of the term is not a crucial feature of the occupational structure.

This study describes changes in the withdrawal of sickness benefits among men and women in Sweden over a period of three decades (1994–2018), based on administrative data. During this period there was a gender gap in the takeout of sickness benefits to women’s disadvantages in all age groups as well as educational groups. The gap was particularly large between men and women with secondary education in the ages 30 to 39. The general gender gap in sickness absence is larger today compared to 1994. The development, after 2010, was mainly driven by a larger increase in sick leave among women with secondary education, both in relation to men with secondary education and in relation to women with both lower and higher levels of education. For women with secondary education, sick leave does not seem to vary according to age. Thus, in this educational group, women of child-rearing age are not more prone to take sick leave than other age groups.

Background Alcohol abuse is not only harmful to the consumer but may also negatively impact individuals in the drinker’s social environment. Alcohol’s harm to others is vital to consider when calculating the true societal cost of alcohol use. Children of parents who have alcohol use disorder tend to have an elevated risk of negative outcomes regarding, e.g., health, education, and social relationships. Research on the general youth population has established a link between parental drinking and offspring alcohol use. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding other outcomes, such as health. The current study aimed to investigate the associations between parental drinking and children’s psychological and somatic complaints, and perceived stress.

Methods Data were derived from a nationally representative sample, obtained from the 2010 Swedish Level-of-Living survey (LNU). Parents and adolescents (ages 10–18) living in the same households were interviewed independently. The final study sample included 909 adolescents from 629 households. The three outcomes, psychological and somatic complaints and perceived stress, were derived from adolescents’ self-reports. Parents’ selfreports of alcohol use, both frequency and quantity, were used to categorise adolescents as having abstaining, lowconsuming, moderate-drinking, or heavy-drinking parents. Control variables included adolescents’ gender, age, family structure, and household socioeconomic status. Linear and binary logistic regression analyses were performed.

Results Parental heavy drinking was more common among adolescents living in more socioeconomically advantaged households and among adolescents living with two custodial parents or in reconstituted families. Adolescents with heavy-drinking parents reported higher levels of psychological and somatic complaints and had an increased likelihood of reporting stress, compared with those having moderate-drinking parents. These associations remained statistically significant when adjusting for all control variables.

Conclusion The current study’s results show that parental alcohol consumption is associated with poorer offspring adolescent health. Public health policies that aim to reduce parental drinking or provide support to these adolescents may be beneficial. Further studies investigating the health-related outcomes among young people living with heavy-drinking parents in the general population are needed to gain more knowledge about these individuals and to implement adequate public health measures.

Background A non-negligible proportion of children grow up with problematic alcohol use in the family. Problematic familial drinking can be regarded as a stressor, and prior studies have consistently reported poorer mental health among adolescents who are exposed. However, it is also of relevance to identify modifiable protective factors which may buffer against stress-related ill-health in this group of adolescents. One context where such factors may be present is the school. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between perceived problematic familial alcohol use and students’ stress-related complaints, and specifically to explore if the school’s degree of student focus can buffer against any such negative health consequences of problem drinking at home.

Methods Data were drawn from four separate surveys, the Stockholm School Survey (SSS) and the Stockholm Teacher Survey (STS) conducted in 2014 and 2016 among 7,944 students (~ 15–16 years) and 2,024 teachers in 147 Stockholm senior-level school units. Perceived problematic familial alcohol use was measured by one item in the SSS. Stress-related complaints were captured by co-occurring somatic complaints and psychological distress, and reported by students in the SSS. The school’s student focus was measured by an index based on teachers’ ratings of four items in the STS. A set of covariates at the student and the school level were also included. Two-level binary logistic and linear regression models were performed.

Results Perceived problematic familial alcohol use was linked with an increased likelihood of reporting co-occurring somatic complaints as well as psychological distress. Cross-level interactions revealed that the association between perceived problematic familial alcohol use and co-occurring somatic complaints was weaker among students attending schools with stronger teacher-rated student focus. Regarding psychological distress, the association was weaker for students attending schools with intermediate or strong teacher-rated student focus, compared with those attending schools with weaker teacher-rated student focus.

Conclusions The findings provide support for the assumption that favourable conditions in schools can buffer against negative health consequences of problematic conditions in the family, thus serving a compensatory role.

Aim: To investigate the associations between problematic familial alcohol use and adolescent subjective health, binge drinking, relationships with parents, school performance, and future orientation, and to study whether these associations differ in relation to parental education. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the Stockholm School Survey (SSS) collected among students in the 9th and 11th grades in 2018 and in 2020 were used (n = 19,415). Subjective health, parent-youth relationships, and school performance were coded as continuous variables; binge drinking and future orientation were coded as binary variables. Familial drinking included three categories: problematic; don't know/missing; and not problematic. Parental university education distinguished between adolescents with two, one, or no university-educated parent(s). Control variables included gender, grade, family structure, migration background, parental unemployment, and survey year. Linear and binary logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: Problematic familial alcohol use was associated with worsened subjective health, a higher likelihood of engaging in binge drinking, worse relationships with parents, and a higher likelihood of having a pessimistic future orientation, even when adjusting for all control variables. Having less than two university-educated parents was associated with a higher likelihood of reporting problematic familial alcohol use. Parental university education moderated the association between problematic familial alcohol use and binge drinking as this relationship was stronger for adolescents with no and one university-educated parent(s). Conclusions: Adolescents with problematic familial alcohol use fared worse with regards to all studied outcomes, except for school performance. Parental university education only moderated the association between problematic familial alcohol use and binge drinking. However, since problematic familial alcohol use was more common among adolescents with less than two university-educated parents, we argue that at the group level, this category may be more negatively affected by alcohol abuse in the family. Policy interventions could benefit from having a socioeconomic perspective on how children are affected by alcohol's harms to others.

The occupational structure of a society can be summarized with indicators of the work tasks involved and the requirements of their performance. Tasks are indicated by work oriented towards people, data and things, respectively, while the skill level of jobs is indicated by educational requirements. On the basis of data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU) 2010 we find that the work content indicators form a two-dimensional structural space. A vertical axis has high-skill work and data or management tasks at one end and low-skill work and production tasks at the other end. A horizontal axis has relational (people-oriented) work at one end and production (things-oriented) work at the other end and is unrelated to skill level. These two dimensions are strongly tied to class (vertical axis) and gender (horizontal axis), although standard class categories and sex distributions are not included among the indicators forming the space.

This chapter discusses theories and research on social stratification by gender, focusing on wage and earnings inequalities. The first part describes changes over time in gendered economic inequalities and discusses the various theories used to account for the gender pay gap from demand-side and supply-side perspectives. The division of paid and unpaid work changes considerably when couples have children. The second part of the chapter discusses research on the earnings gap and the theories aimed at explaining why the majority of women, and rarely men, take the parental leave and reduce their work hours when children are young. Finally, the chapter teases out the relevance of these theories by comparing how the transition to parenthood links to relative income development in female same-sex and different-sex couples in the Nordic countries. Findings suggest that the doing of gender and identity formation may be the most important factors explaining birth mothers’ relative earnings development.

The relationship between gender, working conditions, occupational gender composition and wages is investigated to test the support for the mother-friendly job hypothesis in the family-friendly welfare state of Sweden. The Swedish level-of-living survey (LNU2010) is used to measure two dimensions of working conditions: flexibility and time-consuming work. The findings do not support the notion that women's work is more family-friendly as neither women in general nor mothers have more flexibility than men. Furthermore, female dominated occupations have, in comparison with other occupations, less flexible work arrangements. Instead, gender-integrated occupations have the most flexible work arrangement. Time-consuming work is also most common in gender integrated occupations. Flexibility and time consuming work largely go hand in hand and are both positively associated with wages and also more common in the service class. Finally, women are not economically compensated for their job characteristics in the same extent as men, especially not for their time-consuming work which partially account for the gender wage gap. Taken together the findings counters the notion that the remaining gender wage gap largely is due to women avoiding time consuming work or choosing flexibility. Instead it seems like women are compensated less regardless of their job characteristics.

Mental health problems are associated with a greater risk of being Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) during young adulthood. Yet evidence on the extent to which self-reported mental health problems precede males' and females’ NEET status and on the potential pathways linking mental health problems to NEET is lacking. This study examines the longitudinal associations that internalising and externalising problems during adolescence share with the risk of being NEET in young adulthood, with a focus on the mediating role of school performance. Data comes from a representative sample of 4,452 Swedish youth (51% females) who provided information on internalising and externalising problems at age 14–15 years. Information on secondary school grades (age 15–16 years), completion of upper secondary school (age 20–21 years) and NEET status at 21–22 years were drawn from administrative registers. Overall, 6% of participants were NEET at 21–22 years of age and rates were higher for those who had internalising and externalising problems at age 14–15 years. A series of gender-stratified multivariate regression models showed that for both genders, greater internalising and externalising problems predicted lower school grades and a reduced likelihood of upper secondary school completion. However, externalising problems were associated with an increased risk of being NEET for males, while internalising problems were associated with a higher likelihood of being NEET for females. The effects of externalising and internalising problems for males and females, respectively, were partially mediated by school performance. The findings indicate that mental health problems in adolescence are associated with exclusion from the labour market and education in early adulthood, but that internalising and externalising problems represent different risks for males and females. Furthermore, school performance in comprehensive and upper secondary school helps explain links between mental health problems and subsequent NEET status.