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This article suggests that theories of gender should be considered central concerning the future development of systematic occupational safety and health management in theory and practice. Despite extensive research and legislation, there are still considerable shortcomings in working conditions which indicates difficulties in the implementation of systematic occupational safety and health management. In this article, we address the need for critical analysis that complements more traditional research focusing on health or management. The overall aim is to examine and explain systematic occupational safety and health management in gender-segregated work environments in Sweden, based on theories of doing gender in work organisations. A qualitative methodological approach is used, which includes thematically analysed interviews with inspectors and managers at the Swedish Work Environment Authority. By using a gender-critical analysis several examples of how gendered norms and values complicate and constrain systematic occupational safety and health management are identified. The results pinpoint that these norms and values indirectly contribute to circumscribe essential preconditions for systematic occupational safety and health management procedures and risk leading to difficulties in creating safe and healthy work cultures.

The aim of this article is to critically explore how formal and informal work practices interplay with gender in the shaping of homecare service’s work environments. An ethnomethodological view on doing gender is applied in combination with theories about challenges in relational work.The material is drawn from two projects represented by (i) a cooperative inquiry about Swedish homecare service’s work environments, with homecare service workers and first-line mangers (seven included in this article) and (ii) six semi-structured interviews with employees from a national work environment authority. The analytic procedure was qualitatively based using an abductive approach when looking for cohesive themes. Gendered organizational shortcomings that interplayed with the shaping of the work environments were lack of clear work descriptions, boundaries for work, resources for embodied work, and limited knowledge about risk assessment in relational work.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss conditions for workplace learning in gender-segregated workplaces in the public sector, how social constructions of gender contribute to (or constrain) the workplace learning conditions within two workplace contexts. Design/methodology/approach: The research was carried out through an interactive approach with data from 12 semi-structured interviews with workers and first-line managers from technical maintenance and home care in a Swedish municipality, validated at an analysis seminar with 27 participations, from both workplace contexts the Swedish Work Environment Authority and us researchers. Findings: The results indicate that gender affects conditions for workplace learning and contributes to an enabling learning environment in the male-dominated workplace context and to a constraining learning environment in the female-dominated workplace context. The identified differences are created in both organisational structures and the organisations’ cultures. Research limitations/implications: When analysing conditions for workplace learning from a gender perspective, the approach of comparative, cross-case analyses is useful. An interactive approach with women and men describing and analysing their work experiences together with researchers is a fruitful way of making gender visible. Practical implications: The theoretical approach in this study illuminates how social constructions of gender operate and affect conditions for workplace learning and contributes to a deeper understanding of underlying causes to unequal conditions in different workplace contexts. Social implications: The findings imply a gender divide which, from the theoretical strands, can be seen as an expression of asymmetrical power relations and where these gendered learning conditions probably also affect the quality of the services. Originality/value: The findings contribute to existing gender theoretical literature by demonstrating that gender is essential to take into consideration when understanding working conditions in different workplace contexts. This study contributes to workplace learning literature by exploring the different ways in which social constructions of gender contribute to enabling and constraining learning environments.

For being able to meet societal need of increased public homecare service capacity there is a profound need for work environment development that paves the way for gender-equal, attractive and sustainable jobs. The sector is women-dominated and characterised by poor work environments and high rates of sick absences. To illuminate how the gendered norms, gender-creating practices and new public management interplay in the shaping of the work environment goes outside the scope of traditional work environment research. In this chapter, the aim is to provide new insights, mainly from an organisational perspective, on these aspects, as well as identify what kinds of changes that are needed in order to create more sustainable work environments. Data from two action-oriented research projects on homecare services will serve as examples from practice. Three dilemmas are identified that can illuminate the findings and serve as intersections for future change work: (1) organisational imbalances between the management system and the character of the work, (2) the need of going beyond the contexts of prevailing gendered expectations in order to change how organisational resources are distributed and (3) organisational imbalances between the NPM inspired systems’ rationalities and the need of learning and work environment development.