Use It or Save It? Migration Background and Parental Leave Uptake in Sweden

Abstract

Sweden is a welfare state with a family policy that strongly emphasizes equality without distinction by place of birth or gender. In this study, we investigate the differences in uptake of parental leave between native and immigrant mothers, and the connection to labour-market attachment. Sweden represents a unique case study, not only because of the strong effort to combine work and family for all women and men, the high level of fertility and the large presence of immigrants in the country; it also enables a detailed and sophisticated analysis based on the highquality data derived from its population registers. We find that immigrant mothers use more parental leave benefit the first year after their child's birth, but then fewer in the second year compared with native mothers. The differences diminish when labour-market activity is controlled for. Additionally, after a time in Sweden, immigrant mothers use leave more similarly to how native mothers do.

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

“…Self-employed parents may have the most difficulties to be off work. Immigrant parents also have less access to the flexibility in the leave system, which likely is connected to their more precarious situation on the labor market (Mussino and Duvander, 2016).…”

“…Paid parental benefit days is the measure of parents' leave taking commonly used in other studies and in official statistics (see e.g. Mussino and Duvander, 2016).…”

Fathers’ Parental Leave Uptake in Belgium and Sweden: Self-Evident or Subject to Employment Characteristics?

“…We added a linear and squared term for the father's age at childbirth and a categorical indicator of age of the mother at childbirth (with values: ≤25, 26/30, 31/35, 26/40, ≥41) and controlled for the birth of a second child, whether the couple was married or cohabiting, and level of education of both parents. As previous research indicates that parental leave uptake varies by origin (Kil et al 2018;Mussino and Duvander 2016), we controlled for couples' origin, distinguishing couples where (i) both partners had a Swedish/Belgian origin, (ii) both partners had a migrant origin, (iii) the father had a migrant origin, or (iv) the mother had a migrant origin. We also controlled for region of residence (Nuts1) because, at least in Belgium-family policies, policy coverage and labour market conditions differ between regions.…”

Svensk föräldraförsäkrings utveckling och konsekvenser

“…Vi vet exempelvis att invandrade mammor inte sprider på dagarna på samma sätt som svenskfödda mammor (Mussino & Duvander 2016). Dessutom använder nästan två av tre mammor födda i Afrika söder om Sahara, och hälften av mammor under 25 år, för-äldrapenning på den lägre grundnivån, vilket beror på en svag arbetsmarknadsanknytning This article is downloaded from www.idunn.no.…”