How long is a parental leave and for whom? An analysis of methodological and policy dimensions of leave length and division in Sweden

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>Parental leave in Sweden can be taken both as paid and unpaid leave and often parents mix these forms in a very flexible way. Therefore, multiple methodological issues arise regarding how to most accurately measure leave length. The purpose of this paper is to review the somewhat complex legislation and the possible ways of using parental leave before presenting a successful attempt of a more precise way of measuring leave lengths, including paid and unpaid days, for mothers and fathers.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>The study makes use of administrative data for a complete cohort of parents of first born children in 2009 in Sweden. The authors examine what characteristics are associated with the use of paid and unpaid leave for mothers and fathers during the first two years of the child’s life, focusing particularly on how individual and household income is associated with leave patterns.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>Among mothers, low income is associated with many paid leave days whereas middle income is associated with most unpaid days. High income mothers use a shorter leave. Among fathers it is the both ends with high and low household income that uses most paid and unpaid leave.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title> <jats:p>A measure that includes unpaid parental leave will be important to not underestimate the parental leave and to prevent faulty comparisons between groups by gender and by socioeconomic status.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>A measure of parental leave including both paid and unpaid leave will also facilitate international comparisons of leave length.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

How Different Parental Leave Schemes Create Different Take-Up Patterns: Denmark in Nordic Comparison

“…Education background now appears highly influential, fathers with the longest educations now taking the most leave days, and the least-educated fathers taking the fewest: Those with only lower-secondary schooling take on average approximately 26 days leave, compared to 56 days in couples where fathers have a master's degree. Other studies of parental leave among fathers document the same pattern (e.g., Duvander, 2014;Duvander & Viklund, 2019). The figure also shows a combined effect of mother's education and father's leave take-up; male partners of highly educated women take longer leave, perhaps because the mother in this case prefers to share the leave and return to work sooner.…”

“…Parental leave take-up being closely associated with education levels is often seen as a matter of different gender values. In fact, parents' education is often used to indirectly measure norms and attitudes toward gender equality, with higher education likely being associated with more gender-equal norms, which drives leave take-up (Duvander & Viklund, 2019). As shown in the section on gender attitudes, however, there is no such apparent association between education and gender equality attitudes in Denmark.…”

Geographical Variation in Local Gender Contracts in Sweden

“…For the largest share of parental leave, the benefits received by parents reaches approximately 80% of the previous income, until a certain ceiling. There is significant flexibility in how to share and allocate the leave periods (Duvander and Viklund 2020). In 2010, parental leave could be used anytime up to the child turned 8 years old and it was commonplace to use leave over different periods.…”

Similar Negotiations over Childcare? A Comparative Study of Fathers’ Parental Leave Use in Finland and Sweden

“…It is found that parents' labor market statuses, education and income levels, as well as the father's share of income, are important for parental leave use [13,23,32,33]. The relationship between leave and fathers' income seems to be curvilinear, as the fathers with the highest incomes do not use the most leave.…”