Swedish women earn SEK 4,500 less a month as the gap stalls
Latest figures show long-term progress has given way to a six-year stall, while the income gap is almost twice as wide.
Every month, the average Swedish woman earns SEK 4,500 less than the average man. The gap has barely moved since 2019, leaving Sweden with a flattering long-term trend–and a present-day equality problem not being perceived as urgent.
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The latest figures from Medlingsinstitutet put women’s average monthly pay in 2025 at SEK 40,600, against SEK 45,100 for men. The 9.9% gap narrowed by 0.3 percentage points in a year, but the institute says it has been effectively unchanged since 2019.
Across 2005–2025, the gap fell 6.4 points. That progress is real, yet it can obscure the standstill at the end of the series.
Occupation, age, education and agreed working time explain part of the difference. After adjusting for those factors, 4.4% remained unexplained. The measure cannot by itself prove discrimination because pay statistics do not capture every factor employers may reward.
Sweden’s divided labour market matters: women and men often work in different occupations with different wage levels. In 2025 the public-sector gap was unchanged. Among private-sector manual workers it widened 0.3 points, while it narrowed 0.4 among salaried employees.
Pay also understates the income loss. Women’s average employment income was 19.1% below men’s in 2024, chiefly because women worked fewer hours through more part-time work and absence. The monthly wage gap is therefore the smaller of the two inequalities measured in the report.
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