SRRD_2018_04.pdf (994.66 kB)
Forerunners and Laggards in Sweden’s Family Change. Fathers’ uptake of parental leave, 1993-2010
preprint
posted on 2018-02-09, 10:04 authored by Li MaLi Ma, Gunnar AnderssonGunnar Andersson, Ann-Zofie DuvanderAnn-Zofie Duvander, Marie EvertssonSweden is often considered a forerunner in
family change and developments towards less gendered patterns of family
production. In this study, we focus on recent developments towards more gender
equal sharing of parental leave in Sweden. This country was the first in the
world to introduce a gender-neutral parental leave scheme. The aim was to
promote the combination of work and family, mainly by enabling women’s
participation in the labor force. With time, the focus of policy makers has
shifted towards men and their participation in childcare. In our study, we
explore how men’s use of parental leave has changed over time before and after
the turn of the century. We examine how men’s individual and socio-demographic
characteristics are associated with their parental leave uptake over time in
order to find out whether there are forerunners and laggards in recent family
change. Multinomial logistic regression models were applied to data from
national registers. Our study demonstrates a bifurcation in trends over the
last few decades. This was associated with the extension of reforms that
reserved part of the leave for fathers, the so-called daddy months, but
stretches beyond the impact of any such reforms. Taking long leaves of over two
months was pioneered by better-educated residents in metropolitan areas and
surrounding suburbs, as well as the Swedish-born. Fathers below age 25,
low-income earners and foreign-born men were lagging behind in these
developments. We regard the unstable labor market situation of the latter a
contributing factor to the widening social inequalities in family related
behavior.