In Sweden it is constantly said that everybody has to work in the labour market and that men have to share housework and children care.
Boys learn at school how to sew and girls how to carve wood. However, time use differences persist. Although Swedish men participate more than others, it is women the ones that make most of the housework, and problems grow when they have children. Then, it is women again the ones who stay longer at home and the ones who choose jobs compatibles with those chores (and also badly paid).
Is this a private problem where the public sector has nothing to say? Not at all: experience shows which ones are the necessary reforms to reach equality.
One of the important proposals of Feminist Initiative (F!) is the complete individualization of the parental leave. This issue is in the centre of the debate, although many people here would rather forget about it. But, what is the problem with parental leaves in Sweden? History can give light on all the difficulties and stumbling upon on the way to share children's care.
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.
Also women tend to take the parental leave from the moment of the child birth, while men tend to take it over a more extended time span (by law it is allowed to take it up to when the child is 8 years old).
One of the main effects of this behaviour pattern is the vertical seggregation of the labour market. As Anna Toursie--economist in the Landsorganizationen (Swedish Trade Union Confederation) and author of a report about this issue--, says "employers do not want people who take longer parental leaves, so, since men take shorter ones, they are chosen for responsibility positions."
Some people say that women monopolize parental leaves and do not allow men to take them. Others say tyhat it is important to keep families free to choose. Gudrun Schyman responds: "It is very easy to say that you can have your own choice and the feminists should decide by themselves. And that means that they are not aware of that the decision making that is going on today is in the framework of the patriarchal system. And that there are very strong signals from the very beginning. You are a bad mother if you don’t take care of your children all the time. As a father, as a man, you are like a woman, if you are too much with the children. So these gender roles make it very difficult for people to make genuine decisions from their heart, because you are tuned into these gender roles from the very beginning of your life and it will follow you until you die."
María
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