Umeå proposes gender tax
Members of Umeå municipality’s equality committee are discussing introducing a gender equality tax, which may mean men will have to pay more in taxes. The members, who are also the op-ed writers of an article in Västerbottens-Kuriren, argue “that women are losers and men constant winners when it comes to money”. They want Umeå to become the municipality in Sweden that does the most when it comes to working towards an equal society, according to the article. Much must therefore be done on the “financial level” and they suggest investigating the introduction of a gender tax. In reality this may mean that men will end up paying higher taxes than women – since “there’s still an unexplained salary gap of around 7% in favor of men”, and that women lose money when they, more than men, stay at home with the children and work part time, the members write.

Norwegian bosses love Swedes
70 000 Swedes work in Norway and their bosses and managers are happy about that. Swedes have a higher work morale than Norwegians according to a survey done by Proffice in Norway. All of 73% of the Norwegian managers complain that Norwegian youngsters don’t want to take on a job where they’ll dirty their hands. 1 372 managers were polled in the survey. Only Swedes skilled in certain trades used to go to Norway and try their luck there, but these days academics come too, according to the private employment agency sverige-norge.se

Congratulations Emmy and Jasmine!
Two new names will be added to the Swedish “namnsdagar” in two years (summer of 2015): Emmy and Jasmine. The so-called “namnlängdskommittén”, where among others the Swedish Academy is represented, has made the decision. Emmy will join Emma for her name day on July 23, and Jasmine will share Jesper’s name day on July 26. According to Statistics Sweden 6505 women and two men in Sweden have the name Emmy, and 4054 women and two men have the name Jasmine. There are 150 000 first names in Sweden. Jasmine is a name with Persian origin meaning “flower”. Emmy is diminutive of Emma, which is German in origin and means “big, great”.