This bachelor thesis explores the conditions for a harmonized EU gender equality policy. Recently the maternity leave directive has been introduced by the European commission and seeks to improve the conditions for pregnant workers. The controversial subject of this maternity leave has illustrated many of the problems connected to the development of a social dimension in EU. First of all, the debate concerning the maternity leave directive in the European Parliament has shown that both sides in the parliament seem positive towards creating legislation in this matter on EU level. However, parties at the right tend to disagree to many of the amendments in the proposal, such as the maximum entitlement.

Active ownership is widely regarded as positive for the development and performance of businesses. In this paper, we investigate the impact of ownership concentration and owner identity on return on equity (ROE) in Swedish companies between 1986 and 2008, and show that active ownership might suffer from opposing effects. We find evidence, albeit weak, that ownership concentration has a positive effect on profitability, but that it levels off at high levels of ownership shares. Furthermore, we propose that family ownership has a negative effect on profitability. Our results are dependent of choice of statistical method, but show nonetheless a need to reevaluate what seems to be a universally positive view of active ownership..