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Expert opinion
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1. Is Sweden unique in the work/life space?
Yes. Swedish policymakers were the first in the world in 1968 to challenge the traditional gendered division of labor in which fathers are responsible for earning and mothers are responsible for caregiving. Women and men were then declared to have the same rights, obligations and responsibilities to have a job and to care for home and children. This goal, which would nowadays be considered to be the "dual-earner/dual-carer family model," is deeply rooted in political and popular culture.
The best example of legislation in pursuit of this model is wage-based parental leave. Sweden was the first nation to offer this to fathers in 1974. Today, fathers and mothers each have nontransferable right to two months of parental leave as well as an additional nine months to share. Since 2008 couples who share leave more evenly receive an "equality bonus," a significant tax break.
Other family-supportive government family policies that Sweden pioneered include wage-based leave for children's illnesses, reduced work hours, and guaranteed high-quality affordable places in government-subsidized centers for early childhood care and education starting at age 1. Companies are obligated to establish "equality plans" to promote horizontal and vertical job integration and men's participation in parental leave. Following Sweden's lead, the other Nordic nations (Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway), offer parental leave and childcare, but interest in gender equality as the driving force has been more important in Sweden than elsewhere.
Swedes have for several decades now been exposed to government campaigns and popular debate about how men need to become more active fathers, a trend that is just now becoming evident outside Sweden. Virtually the entire population considers equality between men and women to be an important social goal and the vast majority of couples declare they are interested in sharing breadwinning and childcare equally. Young women assume they will have a life-long attachment to the labor force and young men express a strong sense of entitlement to adopt a new form of masculinity that is more child-oriented.
2. Does the rhetoric match the reality?
No. Currently, there is substantial discrepancy between principles and practice, when it concerns women's and men's status in the labor market. Swedish women are almost as likely as men to be in the paid labor market, but women are typically underrepresented in power positions. For example, in 2008, only 21% of top management positions were occupied by women. The Swedish labor market is also one of the most sex-segregated in the world. Half of women work in government jobs associated with women's traditional role - health care, teaching, and social work. Meanwhile most men work in a larger variety of jobs in the private sector. Job segregation contributes to a gender wage gap, although this gap is small (9%) because of union contracts that offer equal pay for comparable work.
There is also a substantial discrepancy between principles and practice when it comes to sharing housework and early childcare. Time-budget studies of working adults ages 20-64 show that Swedish women and men put in about the same amount of time if unpaid family work and paid employment are added together. However, women still spend more hours doing unpaid domestic work, and since 1990 men's hours in unpaid domestic work have not increased.
Swedish fathers are dedicated to developing close relationships with their children and involve themselves more in physical caregiving in comparison to past generations. However, mothers remain primarily responsible for children and make more accommodation in their participation in the labor force than men do; e.g., almost half of mothers work 30 hours or less a week, compared to about one-tenth of fathers. Women's responsibility for child care negatively affects their lifetime wages, especially if they are out of the labor force for more than a year. While almost all fathers take parental leave, fathers take only 22% of all highly compensated days that parents take. Fathers also take only one-third of all leave days to care for sick children.
While women have been encouraged to see paid work as an obligation, men's participation in active parenting is still seen as more of a choice, e.g., how much parental leave to take or how active a parent they are interested in becoming. Swedish couples rarely report spending much time deciding how they can organize paid and unpaid work in order to realize the type of gender equality that is widely publicized as an important political goal and cultural value. It therefore becomes easy for couples to fall back to traditional norms about employment and childcare. A common reason couples give for their fairly traditional lifestyle is that the man's workplace (in the private sector) is not very supportive of active fatherhood, while the woman's workplace (often in the public sector) helpfully allows her to shift between parental leave and long part-time work over a period of years while children are small. While companies are legally obligated to facilitate both women's and men's combining of work and family life, research on the largest, most profitable companies in Sweden with largely male workforces, however, shows that company culture and work practices still limit most men's ability to combine work and family life. For example, fathers take far fewer days of parental leave if they work in large private companies than if they work in the public sector.
3. What's next?
Overtime, the dual-earner/dual-carer family model will likely become more institutionalized in Sweden, for two main reasons. First, there is substantial political consensus that this model will help Sweden attain desired outcomes such as a healthy birth rate, children's well-being, and economic productivity. The upcoming election in 2010 promises to be a close race; it's not surprising that the ruling conservative coalition came out early with their plan to bring about more gender equality in the labor market, which included this initiative seen as promoting economic productivity: "Promote gender equal participation in working life, by providing women and men the same employment opportunities and chance to develop a good balance between work and family life." The Social Democratic-led coalition in turn is calling for more nontransferable leave to fathers and more attention being paid to women's lack of executive positions, as strategies to enhance gender equality.
There is also growing consensus in the business community that support for the dual-earner/dual-carer family model needs to be more highly prioritized. The government legislation that provides fathers with two months of highly paid leave that cannot be transferred to mothers has put pressure on employers to accommodate fathers' interest in taking this leave. Companies have also come to recognize that men's productivity can be enhanced when they are given new challenges that require new skills, such as those involved in participating more in childcare, especially being home on parental leave. Three quarters of profitable companies surveyed in 2006 stated that flexibility for fathers was becoming "smart business." While there is a substantial gap between principle and practice when it concerns companies' support for gender equality, it seems likely that overtime, new ways of working may come to replace the less flexible patterns seen today.
Linda Haas, Professor of Sociology, Indiana University-Indianapolis, Linda Haas.
References
Alberg, J., Roman, C., & Duncan, S. (2008). Actualizing the "Democratic Family"? Swedish policy rhetoric versus family practices, Social Politics. 15. 79-100.
Bekkengen, L. (2002). Man får välja - Om föräldraskap och föräldraledighet i arbetsliv och familj [One has a right to choose - About parenthood and parental leave in work and family life]. Malmö, Sweden: Liber.
Haas, L., Chronholm, A., Duvander, A. & Hwang, C. P. (2009). "Country Note - Sweden." In International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research 2009, edited by Peter Moss, pp. 326-336. Employment Relations Research Series No. 201. London, UK: British Department of Business Innovation and Skills.
Haas, L., & Hwang, P. (2009). Is fatherhood becoming more visible at work? Trends in corporate support for fathers taking parental leave in Sweden. Fathering. 7(3).
Johansson, T. & Klinth R. (2007). Caring fathers: The ideology of gender equality and masculine positions. Men and Masculinities. 11 (1).
Statistika Centralbyrån. 2008. På tal om kvinnor och män [Talking about women and men]. Stockholm: SCB.
Swedish Government. Strategy for gender equality on the labour market. (2009). Retrieved on March 25, 2010.