The aim of this publication is to investigate the Swedish SIC Code and gender effects relating to how SIC Code descriptions are formulated or used in connection with business statistics. The acronym SIC stands for “Standard Industrial Classification”.

The SIC Code system is a way of dividing different business activities into categories. Production units, i.e. companies and places of work, are classified according to the type of business activity conducted. A company could have several different types of activities and thus be signified by several different SIC Codes. The statistics based on the SIC Code encompasses both emplo yees and entrepreneurs, but for the purposes of this report, it is primarily the gender effects of the SIC Code on entrepreneurs and business statistics that are of interest.

The Swedish Business Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (NUTEK) is Sweden's national public agency for economic policy issues with the task to contribute to the creation of more new enterprises, more growing enterprises and more strong regions – with a view to promoting sustainable economic growth throughout the country. One of NUTEK's programs is to promote womens´ entrepreneurship.

The present report is a first attempt to outline the gender effects of the SIC Code, something which has not been done previously regarding businesses. The SIC Code is used by national and local government, the National Tax Board, Statistics Sweden, many researchers, different interest organisations,
and the business sector. The use of the SIC Code is far more widespread and pervasive, than one would expect. It reflects gender differences and perceptions of gender in society and re-produces gender patterns.

Women run year 2005 appr 25–30 per cent of all Swedish businesses, and their share is increasing, yet research shows that women are seldom thought of as entrepreneurs. Thus it is important that statistics on women’s business activities should
be readily accessible and mirror their activities in an accurate way, for example when using the SIC Code.

The report was written by Karin Folkesson, Stockholm School of Economics and the author alone is responsible for its contents. The report is also available in Swedish.