The Swedish government's pro-natalist policy, too, initially was not
based on gender equality: in the 1950s, a maternal benefit was
introduced allowing women to take care of children. It was not until
1974 that it began to make efforts to make pro-natalist policy
gender-neutral, allowing fathers to take parental leaves as well. But
no father took it in that year! The parental leave policy was
reformed again in 1994, and it is now offered to individuals rather
than families, which raised fathers' participation rate. Still, only
17% of parental leave time is being used by fathers, and that's in the
country where men make use of parental leaves more than any other
country except Iceland. (For more information, see "Parental Leave in
Sweden: Why Is It So Difficult That Fathers Take Care of Their
Children? (I)" below.)
In reality beyond policy, even the most gender-neutral social
democratic states have mainly allowed women to combine wage labor and
child care more easily than before, and men still do little of the
latter.
Gender neutrality is apparently not enough to promote gender equality
in care-giving labor in particular and a gender-equal division of
labor in general.
<blockquote>Sweden eliminated differences between mothers and fathers
regarding parental leave in 1974. However, instead of creating an
individual leave for each person, it was created on a family basis, so
that it could be shared and divided between father and mother at
convenience. That year, the generous Swedish fathers took 0% of the
total parental leave hours (100% for mothers), and the proportion did
not change much more in the next two decades.
In light of this result, in 1994, a non-transferable month for each
parent was implemented. This measure was very successful: in 1995,
fathers took 10% of the total parental leave time (in hours).
In 2002 the non-transferable parental leave was increased up to 2
months. And in 2003, fathers enjoyed 17% of the total amount of hours
taken under parental leave time. It is an enormous amount of time, the
time fathers devote to taking care of their children in Sweden, in
comparison to any other European country, except Iceland.
During these years, the total amount of parental leave has been
increasing. Nowadays it makes up to 390 days at 80% of the salary,
plus 90 days more at 7€/day.
Women (mothers) tend to sistematically take all the time men (fathers)
do not. At least, most of the 390 days at 80% of the salary. Which
means that women are out of work for a minimun of 324 days, while
fathers are under parental leave for 66 days on average. ("Parental
Leave in Sweden: Why Is It So Difficult That Fathers Take Care of
Their Children? (I),"
<http://feminist.typepad.com/feminist_initiative/2006/09/parental_leaves.html>)</blockquote>
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
