IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v9y2021i2p300-312.html

Social Inclusion or Gender Equality? Political Discourses on Parental Leave in Finland and Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Mikael Nygård

    (Department of Social Policy, Åbo Akademi University, Finland)

  • Ann-Zofie Duvander

    (Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden / Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mid University, Sweden)

Abstract

During the 2010s, both Finland and Sweden made advancements in their parental leave systems by widening the right to paid parental leave to a greater diversity of family constellations and investing in gender-equal leave distribution through longer leave periods reserved for the father. However, in the latter respect, Sweden has remained more successful than Finland. This article analyses government and political party discourses in Finland and Sweden during the 2010s in pursuit of an explanation to this difference and for understanding how ideas on social inclusion and gender equality have been used to drive, or block, policy reforms in the field of parental leave. The results show that the parental leave discourses have become influenced by ideas on social inclusion and gender equality in both countries, but in somewhat different ways. While gender equality has retained a stronger position in the Swedish discourse and its policy, social inclusion, and notably the rights of same-sex parents, have become more visible in the Finnish. However, the results also show that both ideas have remained contested on a party level, especially by confessional and nationalist-populist parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikael Nygård & Ann-Zofie Duvander, 2021. "Social Inclusion or Gender Equality? Political Discourses on Parental Leave in Finland and Sweden," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 300-312.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v9:y:2021:i:2:p:300-312
    DOI: 10.17645/si.v9i2.3844
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/3844
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/si.v9i2.3844?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diana Auth & Hanne Martinek, 2017. "Social Investment or Gender Equality? Aims, Instruments, and Outcomes of Parental Leave Regulations in Germany and Sweden," Springer Books, in: Diana Auth & Jutta Hergenhan & Barbara Holland-Cunz (ed.), Gender and Family in European Economic Policy, chapter 0, pages 153-176, Springer.
    2. Siv Gustafsson & Frank Stafford, 1992. "Child Care Subsidies and Labor Supply in Sweden," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(1), pages 204-230.
    3. Häusermann, Silja & Picot, Georg & Geering, Dominik, 2013. "Review Article: Rethinking Party Politics and the Welfare State – Recent Advances in the Literature," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 221-240, January.
    4. Anita Nyberg, 2000. "From Foster Mothers to Child Care Centers: A History of Working Mothers and Child Care in Sweden," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 5-20.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sonja Blum & Ivana Dobrotić, 2021. "The Inclusiveness of Social Rights: The Case of Leave Policies," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 222-226.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mikael Nygård & Ann-Zofie Duvander, 2021. "Social Inclusion or Gender Equality? Political Discourses on Parental Leave in Finland and Sweden," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 300-312.
    2. Karlsson, Tobias & Kok, Joris & Perrin, Faustine, 2021. "The Historical Gender Gap Index: A Longitudinal and Spatial Assessment of Sweden, 1870-1990," Lund Papers in Economic History 217, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    3. Marianne Simonsen, 2010. "Price of High‐quality Daycare and Female Employment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(3), pages 570-594, September.
    4. Colm Harmon & Claire Finn & Arnaud Chevalier & Tarja Viitanen, 2006. "The economics of early childhood care and education : technical research paper for the National Economic and Social Forum," Open Access publications 10197/671, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    5. François Bonnet & Clément Théry, 2014. "Sociology and political science in the patrimonial society: implications of Piketty's Capital," Working Papers halshs-01060570, HAL.
    6. Ann-Sofie Bergman, 2025. "Historical Perspectives on Foster Care Payments: Changing Practices During the 20th Century," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 13.
    7. Gosta Esping-Andersen, 2008. "Childhood investments and skill formation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(1), pages 19-44, February.
    8. Lefebvre, Pierre & Merrigan, Philip & Verstraete, Matthieu, 2009. "Dynamic labour supply effects of childcare subsidies: Evidence from a Canadian natural experiment on low-fee universal child care," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 490-502, October.
    9. Christina Gathmann & Björn Sass, 2012. "Taxing Childcare: Effects on Family Labor Supply and Children," CESifo Working Paper Series 3776, CESifo.
    10. Siv Gustafsson & Frank P. Stafford, 1994. "Three Regimes of Child Care: The United States, the Netherlands, and Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: Social Protection versus Economic Flexibility: Is There a Trade-Off?, pages 333-362, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    12. Julia Darby & Robert A Hart & Michaela Vecchi, 1998. "Labour Force Participation and the Business Cycle: A Comparative Analysis of Europe, Japan and the United States," Working Papers 9802, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    13. Gunnar Andersson & Ann-Zofie Duvander & Karsten Hank, 2004. "Erwerbsstatus und Familienentwicklung in Schweden aus paarbezogener Perspektive," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-006, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    14. Asakawa, Shinsuke & Sasaki, Masaru, 2020. "Can Childcare Benefits Increase Maternal Employment? Evidence from Childcare Benefits Policy in Japan," IZA Discussion Papers 13589, IZA Network @ LISER.
    15. Chikako Yamauchi, 2010. "The availability of child care centers, perceived search costs and parental life satisfaction," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 231-253, June.
    16. Del Boca, Daniela & Vuri, Daniela, 2005. "Labor Supply and Child Care Costs: The Effect of Rationing," IZA Discussion Papers 1779, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Junyi Zhang & Lili Xu & Akimasa Fujiwara, 2012. "Developing an integrated scobit-based activity participation and time allocation model to explore influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour," Transportation, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 125-149, January.
    18. Olivier Guillot, 1996. "Activité féminine et garde des jeunes enfants : une analyse micro-économétrique," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 122(1), pages 83-94.
    19. Xiaodong Gong & Robert Breunig, 2010. "Child care availability, quality and affordability: are local problems related to maternal labour supply ?," Treasury Working Papers 2010-02, The Treasury, Australian Government, revised Apr 2010.
    20. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2020. "Does subsidized care for toddlers increase maternal labor supply? Evidence from a large-scale expansion of early childcare," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v9:y:2021:i:2:p:300-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.