For decades, the five Nordic countries—Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland—have served as models of democratic bliss, with profound similarity in their progressive political, economic, and social structures. Their consistent placement among the top five countries in the world for gender equality suggests that their status as the international poster children for equal rights is well-deserved. But as global disparities between male and female academic performance grow, the Nordic countries may serve as a critical case study in which different approaches to the so-called “boy crisis” are applied in similar states.
Today, the Northern European countries exist in the context of a world wherein men lag further and further behind women in school. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “globally only 88 men are enrolled [in tertiary education] for every 100 women.” Furthermore, boys are “at greater risk of repeating grades, failing to progress and complete their education, and not learning while in school.” This phenomenon is both novel and shocking; countries are unprepared and uncoordinated in their responses. In Kuwait, for example, UNESCO found that, despite a wide achievement gap between male and female students, there are no government programs or policies that “explicitly target boys.”
Despite their exemplary educational record, the Nordic countries are far from exempt from this trend. In 2019, 82 percent of all native-born Norwegian female students completed upper-secondary school in five or fewer years, while only 73 percent of men could say the same. In Sweden, the average scores of native-born, female ninth-graders are 12 points higher than their male classmates. This begs a critical question for policymakers and onlookers alike: Will Nordic countries retain their exceptional status amid a rapidly changing educational landscape? The global decline in men’s academic performance is putting the often-idealized Northern European countries to the test, revealing ideological fissures hiding behind the supposed homogeneity of the Nordic welfare system.
Sweden and Norway represent opposing sides of this duality. The most telling indicators of the countries’ policy goals are Swedish Government Official Reports (SOUs) and their Norwegian counterparts, NOUs. NOUs on the topic of male academic underperformance are often products of the Mannsutvalget, or the Men’s Equality Commission, which was established in 2022, to “examine gender equality challenges faced by boys and men.” SOUs, on the other hand, are produced by governmental groups that cover a wide array of topics under the umbrella of gender equality, including both male and female gender discrimination.
Perhaps as a result, while SOUs continue to balance feminist ideals with a focus on boys’ underachievement, Norway’s NOUs have shifted toward “correcting a certain women’s bias.” The 2018 SOU “Masculinity and Gender Equality,” for example, presents the relationship between male and female gender inequality as a sort of ‘women struggle more than men, but men struggle too’ conundrum. The report begins by clearly acknowledging that “women as a group are disadvantaged in relation to men within most areas,” before outlining how “institutional privileges” and masculine stereotypes exist alongside the costs of masculinity, such as social expectations that discourage men from exhibiting certain behaviors or values. Another SOU from 2024, courtesy of the Swedish Ministry of Employment, counterbalances the discussion of women’s academic success with the acknowledgment that women also experience far greater pressure, stress, and mental health struggles on average within the education system. This broadens the conversation beyond seemingly black-and-white test scores and graduation rates to the more complex experiences of female students. Thus, SOUs promote the continuous pursuit of feminist ideals within the classroom even as they seek to address male underperformance.
Conversely, recent NOUs largely neglect all feminist thought and instead “include analysis of the unfair burdens of boys.” An NOU from 2024 begins by asserting that “equality’s next step should be to include boys’ and men’s challenges to a greater extent than today.” Throughout this argument, there is a noticeable lack of acknowledgment of women’s ongoing struggle in Norwegian society. The Mannsutvalget frames the fight for female gender equality as a closed chapter, and men’s equality as the next chapter. This is especially concerning considering that, in both countries, men continue to hold significant advantages over women in professional life. The average middle-educated Norwegian male earns 7 percent more than a highly-educated Norwegian female, a gap that is only slightly larger in Sweden.
Although NOUs include limited analysis of the lasting effects of patriarchy on female students, they generally include far deeper research and speculation into the overlap between gender, immigration status, and school performance than SOUs do. As a result, there is a far greater wealth of research exploring how immigrant boys and girls fare in the Norwegian education system than in its Swedish counterpart. Intersectionality between nationality, race, and gender is an important thread to follow, given that immigrant boys significantly underperform in school compared to their peers. Therefore, the Swedish government’s relative lack of focus on immigrant academic performance is perhaps a notable shortcoming of the SOUs.
The magnitude of the differences between their approaches is perplexing—especially given the countries’ shared inheritance of the 1990s’ Nordic “School for All” movement. The Swedish emphasis on feminist thought is made more striking by its absence in Norwegian reports, and the same is true when SOUs gloss over the role of immigration but NOUs dive deep. Years will pass before enough data becomes available to discern whether the Norwegian or Swedish perspective proves more effective in reducing the gender gap in education. But regardless of which prevails overall, it is clear that NOUs and SOUs each have strengths and weaknesses to be mimicked or rejected.
Moving forward, the boy crisis requires a coordinated, strategic solution that draws on the strongest, and strays from the weakest, aspects of Norwegian and Swedish gender equality policy. Only an approach that recognizes the significance of championing feminist ideals, as well as exploring socioeconomic divides that exacerbate educational disparities, will succeed in fully halting the frightening trend. The two nations may just provide a canvas upon which the impacts of opposing gender equality policies in similar environments can stand out. As two of the highest-ranked countries for gender equality, Sweden and Norway should be seriously considered as models—however imperfect they may be—for nation-states beyond the Baltic Sea.
In 2024—an election year for over 60 countries—it is especially prudent that policymakers tread carefully and consider Nordic examples when it comes to the boy crisis. Otherwise, one of two tragic conclusions is near. Either men will continue to fall behind in school and pivot toward the voice of loud, “nostalgic masculinity” broadcasted by the populist far-right, or efforts to support male learners will result in a return to a male-dominated education system as feminism fades in the rear-view mirror.