How Gender-Neutral are the Nordic Countries Really? Father-Friendliness in Leave Schemes for Families with Children
| Author | Sara Ravnkilde Nielsen,Lærke Bonnesen |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271301500406 |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
European Jour nal of Social Sec urity, Volume 15 (2013), No. 4 403
HOW GENDERNEUTRAL ARE THE
NORDIC COUNTRIES REALLY? FATHER
FRIENDLINESS IN LEAVE SCHEMES
FOR FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN
L B and S R N*
Abstract
Signi cant changes regarding work and family patterns in post-industrial societie s have
rocked the foundations of the gendered division of labour in family life. Never theless, the
focus of attention has thu s far mainly been on women’s roles and entitlements, and h as
not implied a parallel focus on men’s roles as fathers and caregiver s. is article redirect s
attention to the role of men as fathers b y exploring the economic incentives for fathers to
take up parental leave in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finl and, Norway and Sweden).
It also highlights the great variety of ci rcumstances relating to education and jobs among
fathers. It constructs a more ‘realistic’ representation of the material conditions facing
families with children through an in-depth policy analysis that takes into account not
only public leave schemes but also the private layer of welfare entitlements for broad
categories of workers, representing di erent socio-economic groups and employment
sectors. e results indicate that there are di erent economic incentives for fathers to
take up parental leave across countries – with Sweden being the most ‘ father-friendly’
– as well as class-based and sector-based inequalities within countries. In-depth policy
analysis of public and private layers of welfare entitleme nts reveal dissimilarities in acces s
to participation in family life between fathers in the Nordic countrie s.
* Lærke Bonnesen is a Re search Assoc iate at the Centre for Welfare State Research, University of
Southern Denmark; address: Cent re for Welfare State Research, Department of Political Science
and Public Management, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M; phone: +45 2611 2003; e-mail:
laerkebonnesen@g mail.com. Sa ra Ravnk ilde Nielsen is al so a Research Associate at the Centre
for Welfare State Research, University of Southern Denmark; add ress: Centre for Welfare St ate
Research, Depa rtment of Politica l Science and Publ ic Management, Ca mpusvej 55, DK-5230
OdenseM; phone: + 45 3027 1796; e-mail: sara.rav nkilde.nielsen@gma il.com. ey wish to thank
Anita Haataja, Senior Researcher at the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, for assist ing
with Finni sh tax calculations. In a ddition, they are gratefu l for the help that the Danish Nurses’
Organisat ion, the Norwegian Nurses’ Org anisation, and several ot her Nordic labour unions have
provided. In add ition, they wish to t hank the two anony mous referees for their valu able comments
on the artic le in dra . Last- and mainl y, they would like to than k Professor Jon Kvist at the Centre
for Welfare State Resea rch for his continuous advice, i nspiration and support .
Lærke Bonnesen and S ara Ravnki lde Nielsen
404 Intersentia
Keywords: gender equality; micro-simulation; Nordic welfare states; occupational
entitlements; parental leave; take -up by fathers
1. INTRODUCTION
An increased focus on gendered outcomes has characterised mainstream welfare
state research since 1990, but few studies have explicitly focused their attention
on men’s participation in family life. Instead, most scholars have directed their
e orts towards describing and analysing the negative e ects that gender inequality
in welfare arrangements and labour markets can potentially have on women. is
research has re ected the empirica l reality of the entry of women into labour marke ts
in post-industrial societies. us, the roles of men as fathers and caregivers have
largely been neglected. In this article, we argue that both labour market and family
life participation are goods to which men and women do not have equal access. We
cont rib ute to reme dyin g th e lac k of re sea rch on thi s asp ect of th e mod ern we lfa re st ate
by arguing th at men are important analytica l subjects, that fathers are di erent from
each other, and that we need to redirect our attention to multiple ‘layers’ of welfare
provision in order to grasp this p oint empirically.
e aim of this article is to explore a somewhat under-investigated aspect of
men’s participation in family life, namely that of the (material) incentives for
fathers to stay at home to take care of their young children during the rst year
of their children’s lives.1 Even in the Nordic countries, where gender-equality
considerations are commonly central to public policy, fathers still take far less
parental leave than their spouses. However, there are great di erences in fathers’
take-up between these otherwise similar countries. In 2010, Swedish fathers took
up almost a quar ter of the total leave available to famil ies, while Norwegian fathers
took up one seventh of the leave, Danish fathers took one thirteenth, and Finnish
fathers took one fourteenth (Nordic Council of Ministers 2011). is puzzling
discrepancy in take-up by fathers is our point of departure as we investigate the
economic incentive structure s that guide at least part of the leave al location choices
of families w ith young children.
In doing this, we employ a method of ‘stacking’ public (statutory) and private
(occupational) parental leave bene ts available to parents ‘on top’ of each other.
By ’parental leave’, we refer to formal arrangements of public and/or occupational
support to at-home care by parents during the rst period of a child’s life that are
meant to be temporary in nature, so as to facilitate the return of the participating
1 To avoid conceptual confusion, we de ne the terms ‘maternity leave’ and ‘paternity leave’ as t he
leave periods ear marked for mothers and fathers , respectively, ‘sharable leave’ as t he leave periods
that parents ca n freely divide a mong them, and ‘parenta l leave’ as a generic term denoti ng the whole
leave period or work absenteeism related to temporary child-caring duri ng the rst year of the
child’s life .
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