Background: Ménières disease is a complex neurological disease that varies greatly from individual to individual with symptoms such as dizziness and tinnitus. There are few studies that examines the differences regarding balance and dizziness related perception of disabilitiy between men and women with Ménière’s disease. Purpose: Investigate self-assessed perception of disability and balance of people with Ménières disease. The study also aimed to investigate whether there were any differences between men and women regarding the above mentioned variables. Method: Retrospective study with quantitative, correlative and comparative design. 41 subjects, 21 women, 20 men were included in the study. Results: No significant difference between men and women regarding scores on DHI-S or result on Romberg’s test could be shown in this study. Neither could any significant connection between self-assessed perception of disability and balance measured with DHI-S and Romberg’s respectively could be made. Conclusion: No relation between self-assessed disability and balance was detected between men and women. The study also did not find any differences between the sexes on how they perform on balance measurement or rate their disability. More studies are needed to further investigate and map this area. / Bakgrund: Ménières sjukdom är en neurologisk sjukdom med symtom som yrsel och tinnitus. I dagsläget finns få studier som undersöker skillnader gällande balans och yrsel relaterad upplevelse av funktionsnedsättning mellan män respektive kvinnor med Ménières sjukdom. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka eventuella samband mellan självskattad funktionsnedsättning och balans samt skillnader mellan män och kvinnor. Metod: Retrospektiv studie med kvantitativ, korrelerande och komparativ design. 41 antal försökspersoner, 21 kvinnor, 20 män inkluderades i studien. Resultat: Ingen skillnad mellan män och kvinnors värde på DHI-S kunde påvisas. Det förelåg ingen signifikant skillnad mellan män och kvinnor gällande resultat på Rombergs test. Inget samband mellan upplevelse av funktionsnedsättning och balans mätt med DHI-S respektive Rombergs test för kvinnor och män gick att påvisa. Konklusion: Inget samband mellan självskattad funktionsnedsättning och balans kunde påvisas hos män och kvinnor. Studien fann inte heller några skillnader mellan könen gällande hur de presterar på balansmätning eller skattar sin funktionsnedsättning. Vidare studier behövs för att kunna ytterligare undersöka och kartlägga detta område.

Research on gender equality in Swedish higher education shows an unequal gender balance. Women are consistently underrepresented at the highest levels of the academic hierarchy. The lack of gender equality in academia has been illustrated by metaphors such as a narrowing pyramid, a leaky pipeline and a black hole. Unlike other problems in the academic context, gender inequality in higher education is seldom considered from a system perspective. The system of higher education has undergone major changes during the 1990s in terms of scope (more students, more faculty, more institutions, etc.), differentiation (inclusion of new disciplines) and geographical distribution (establishing institutions in previously unserviced areas). In this thesis, theoretical expectations concerning the effect of these changes on gender equality are developed. The thesis investigates gender equality in higher education by developing an analytical framework to analyze the system level and its impact on gender equality. The empirical data consists of two sets. The first set contains cross-sectional data on registered students, doctoral entrants, doctors, post-doctoral fellows, lecturers and professors in Swedish higher education. The second set is derived from the longitudinal integration database for health insurance and labor market studies (LISA), which consists of anonymized data on all individuals in the Swedish labor market that hold doctoral degrees. The main finding of the thesis is that the system of higher education does have an impact on the gender equality in higher education. The vertical gender balance has increased during the expansion of Swedish higher education during the 1990s. The horizontal gender balance has also increased, but the increase is limited to the student category. On the other hand, the system of higher education has not had an impact on the gender equality measured in terms of exits from academia. Instead, the analysis shows that the rate of men that leave academia is higher than the rate of women, and that commonly used metaphors portraying academia as a narrowing pyramid, a leaky pipeline or a black hole serve poorly as illustrations of the gender equality in academia.