Sanders on Nordic Nirvana

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Bernie Sanders joins us now. Welcome to "This Week." Why are you the best choice for president of the United States?

SANDERS: Because for the last 30 years, I've been standing up for the working families of this country, and I think I'm the only candidate who's prepared to take on the billionaire class, which now controls our economy, and increasingly controls the political life of this country. We need a political revolution in this country involving millions of people who are prepared to stand up and say, enough is enough, and I want to help lead that effort.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So does that mean that Hillary Clinton is part of the billionaire class?

SANDERS: It means that Hillary Clinton has been part of the political establishment for many, many years. I have known Hillary for some 25 years. I respect her and I like her, but I think what the American people are saying, George, is that at a time when 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent, and when the top 0.1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, maybe it's time for a real political shakeup in this country and go beyond establishment politics.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You are asking for a lot of shakeup. Is it really possible for someone who calls himself a socialist to be elected president of the United States?

SANDERS: Well, so long as we know what democratic socialism is. And if we know that in countries, in Scandinavia, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, they are very democratic countries, obviously. The voter turnout is a lot higher than it is in the United States. In those countries, health care is the right of all people. And in those countries, college education, graduate school is free. In those countries, retirement benefits, childcare are stronger than in the United States of America. And in those countries, by and large, government works for ordinary people and the middle class, rather than, as is the case right now in our country, for the billionaire class.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I can hear the Republican attack ad right now. He wants American to look more like Scandinavia.

SANDERS: That's right. That's right. And what's wrong with that? ...

Although no country in the world has yet achieved gender equality, the Nordic countries consistently stand out in the World Economic Forum's annual Global Gender Gap Report, which measures how well countries are doing at removing the obstacles that hold women back.

In this year's report, Iceland holds the top spot for the fifth consecutive year with Finland, Norway and Sweden following close behind. With the exception of Denmark, all Nordic countries have closed over 80 percent of the gender gap, making them useful as both role models and benchmarks. So, what is the secret of their success?
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While many developed economies have succeeded in closing the gender gap in education, few have succeeded in maximizing the returns on this investment. The Nordic countries are leaders in this area -- all five countries feature in the top 25 of the economic participation and opportunity pillar of the Global Gender Gap Index. This is because of a combination of factors: high female labour force participation; salary gaps between women and men among the lowest in the world, although not non-existent; and abundant opportunities for women to rise to positions of leadership.

While patterns vary across the Nordic countries, on the whole, these economies have made it possible for parents to combine work and family, resulting in more women in the workplace, more shared participation in childcare, more equitable distribution of labour at home, better work-life balance for both women and men and, in some cases, a boost to waning fertility rates.

Policies in these countries include mandatory paternal leave in combination with maternity leave, generous, state-mandated parental leave benefits provided by a combination of social insurance funds and employers, tax incentives and post-maternity re-entry programmes. Together, these policies have lowered the opportunity costs of having children and led to relatively higher and rising birth rates, as compared to other ageing, developed economies.

There has also been success with policies aimed at promoting women's leadership. In Norway, since 2008, publicly listed companies have been required to have 40 percent of each sex on their boards. Other countries are adopting similar measures. Historically, the Nordic countries gained a head start by giving women the right to vote before others (Sweden in 1919, Norway in 1913, Iceland and Denmark in 1915, Finland in 1906). In Denmark, Sweden and Norway, political parties introduced voluntary gender quotas in the 1970s, resulting in high numbers of female political representatives over the years. In Denmark, in fact, this quota has since been abandoned as no further stimulus is required.

Today, Sweden has among the highest percentages of women in parliament in the world (44.7 percent) while the other Nordic countries are almost as successful. Indeed, all the Nordic countries are in the top 10 for the number of women in parliament. These countries have a similarly strong record on the percentage of women in ministerial level positions, with Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland the four best countries in that category out of the 136 countries covered by the report. Finally, Iceland, Finland and Norway are among the top 10 countries in terms of the number of years with a female head of state or government, although the world as a whole does poorly on this indicator.