Abstract
AbstractSweden is often considered a forerunner in family change and developments towards less gendered family production patterns. In this study, we focus on recent developments towards more gender-equal sharing of parental leave in Sweden. We explore how fathers’ use of parental leave has changed over time before and since the turn of the century. As the parental leave benefit is individual and earnings-based, we examine how fathers’ individual socio-economic and demographic characteristics are associated with their parental leave uptake over time, to determine 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 in recent decades. This is associated with the extension of reforms that reserve part of the leave for fathers, the so-called “daddy months”, but stretches beyond the impact of any such reforms. Taking a long leave of over two months was pioneered by better-educated residents of metropolitan areas and surrounding suburbs, as well as Swedish-born fathers. Young fathers, low-income earners and foreign-born fathers lagged behind in these developments. We regard the unstable labour market situation of the latter as a contributing factor in widening social inequalities in family-related behaviour.
Highlights
Encouraging fathers to take parental leave is a key policy issue in relation to gender equality (Gornick and Meyers, )
It shows that at the beginning of the study period the differences in leave use across the fathers’ educational attainment were relatively small. Over time these differences have increased substantially as the highly educated fathers have become much more likely than others to take extended leave. They can be seen as forerunners in the recent family-demographic
We aimed to identify possible forerunners and laggards in new patterns of leave use over time and in relation to the reforms in and that provided additional time earmarked for fathers’ parental leave
Summary
Encouraging fathers to take parental leave is a key policy issue in relation to gender equality (Gornick and Meyers, ). Fathers’ uptake of parental leave facilitates mothers’ being able to combine work and family life, and increases. Fathers’ involvement in childcare and housework (Schober, ). It may strengthen fathers’ bond with their children and promote the children’s well-being (Flouri and Buchanan, ). A gap in fathers’ leave use has been documented in a variety of contexts (O’Brien, ). Financial reasons and career penalties are barriers to fathers’ uptake (Twamley and Schober, )
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