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Achieving and maintaining high employment rates is becoming increasingly important. Governments seek to mobilise new sub-groups of population into employment. However, the Nordic employment rates are already high when compared internationally and historically. The question arises: where should the increase in employment come from? This report uses statistical comparisons to pin-point the main possible sources of employment potential in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. These countries are both similar and different enough in the sense that comparisons can shed new light on the issue. The four countries are compared to the "best pupil in class" in order to point out the possible potential. For instance, Finnish women work much longer hours than women in the three other countries. This indicates that increasing women's working time is a potential source of new employment for them. Employment trends are compared especially in relation to a number of themes. They include working time and part-time employment, unemployment, early exit, very late exit, sickness absence, and disability. Throughout the report, the countries are studied and compared from the perspective of increasing total employment. Some relevant policy indications and the possibilities of mobilising the existing employment potential are also discussed.

Women are playing a larger role in the workforce than ever before, but not in the U.S.The employment rate measures the percentage of the adult population of working age (15-64 years) that is an active participant in the labour force (full-time or part-time). A high employment rate enables countries to finance government programs with moderate rates of taxation, and in high employment countries there tends to be less pressure on social programs. Countries with low employment rates are less able to fund services and face greater social pressures.The employment rate provides a better measure of economic performance than the unemployment rate because it considers not only individuals who are unemployed but also those who have been discouraged to look for work.

AbstractIndian women's labor force participation rates have long demonstrated a U‐shaped relationship with their education, rather than a more conventional positive linear relationship. The low rates of employment for moderately educated women are usually explained either as a result of the cultural stigma of women's employment in a patriarchal society or because of the lack of demand from white‐collar and light manufacturing jobs for women with middle levels of education. Using especially well‐suited data from two waves of the India Human Development Survey, we test these explanations by examining the education–employment relationship in districts with low cultural stigma (low observance of purdah) and high proportions of (salaried) employment considered "suitable" for women. We find little support for either the cultural or structural explanations: the education–employment relationship remains U‐shaped in districts with low stigma or with more "suitable" salaried employment. Instead, we suggest a better explanation lies in the high levels of gender segregation where most white‐collar jobs are reserved for men. We simulate what the education–employment relationship would look like if these white‐collar occupations were female‐dominated as they are in most places in the world and find a more conventional linear relationship.