SwedishNews

Decreased Swedish weapon export. Fewer report discrimination in Sweden. Boys spend more time at daycare. 

  • India, the country to which Sweden exports most of its weapons. Above: New Delhi, India.

  • Decreased Swedish weapon export
    Swedish weapon export decreased in 2012 by 30 percent compared to 2011. In total the export came to 9.8 billion SEK ($1,525,545,367), according to Inspektionen för strategiska produkter (the Swedish Agency for non-proliferation and export controls). The greatest single buyers were (in order) India, Saudi Arabia, France, Pakistan and Thailand.

  • Mia Heikkilä.

  • Fewer report discrimination in Sweden
    The number of reported discriminations in Sweden is decreasing. Last year, the reports to Diskrimineringsombudsmannen (the Equality Ombudsman) was one-fifth less than the year before. But according to Minister for Integration, Erik Ullenhag, that doesn’t necessarily mean discrimination is on the decline. “Rather it’s the opposite,” Ullenhag says to daily Svenska Dagbladet. And Lina Gidlund, who works at Sveriges antidiskrimineringsbyråer (Sweden Antidiscrimination Agencies), agrees, saying that in all probability discrimination in Sweden is on the rise.

  • Boys spend more time at daycare
    Boys spend an average of two and a half hours more at daycare than girls on a weekly basis, according to a survey made by Ekot, who compiled the weekly schedules of parents to 9500 children in five municipalities: Lerum, Norrtälje, Partille, Karlstad and Trosa. In all the communities but Karlstad, the boys’ time in daycare was longer than the girls’. In some municipalities, such as Norrtälje, the differences were quite significant: Boys stayed an average of six hours longer in daycare every week than girls. In Trosa the average difference was five hours. Only in Karlstad was there an equal distribution between the genders. There’s no explanation for these differences, and there’s no research on the topic. But according to Mia Heikkilä, gender researcher and lecturer in pedagogy, other research points to the attitude in parents. They feel that boys can handle more, and that one has to be more careful with girls. Heikkilä adds this is subconscious thinking. Parents often refer to boys with words like “tough” and “strong” and similar epithets. “And if you subconsciously use labels like those, then perhaps you also think boys can handle being in daycare longer,” Heikkilä says to Ekot.