Ann-Zofie Duvander

• Stockholm University

Objective This study investigated the association between individuals' economic situation and divorce among the population aged 60+ in Sweden, with a focus on the role of gender and potential changes across cohorts. Background Previous research on divorce has mainly considered individuals of working age or all ages combined, although late‐life div...

Research on determinants of fathers’ parental leave use often focuses on fathers’ characteristics but leave out that decisions are negotiated with the mother. This study asks how fathers’ and mothers’ characteristics as well as their combination are associated with fathers’ leave use in Sweden, a country where parental leave sharing is encouraged....

Despite steady economic and social development in Bangladesh, women are in an underprivileged situation in many ways. This study explores the association between the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and women’s empowerment in Bangladesh. This study employs ordinary least squares regression, the ordered logit model, and the mult...

Swedish family policy is more or less completely gender-neutral and includes strong incentives for shared parenthood. Parental rights and responsibilities are not dependent on sharing residence with children, and cooperation on parenting is assumed also after separation, including the sharing of costs for children when children live mainly with one...

Increased gender equality in the labor market and the home are both cited as stabilizers to income inequality between households, but shifts in the economic organization of families over the life course instead appear to amplify household income inequality. Using the case of Sweden, where men have taken longer parental leave in recent years and the...

Objective: This study examines the extent to which the experience of parenthood worries among Finnish first-time parents predicts the probability of a second birth, and whether the associations differ according to the parent’s gender or the sufficiency of spousal support in parenting. Background: First-time parents’ withdrawal from having a second...

Importance The 1980 and 1986 Swedish so-called speed premium policies aimed at protecting parents’ income-based parental leave benefits for birth intervals shorter than 24 and 30 months, respectively, but indirectly encouraged shorter birth spacing and childbearing at older ages, both risk factors for several perinatal health outcomes. Whether thos...

Immigration to Sweden is dominated by women and men of childbearing age, and many arrive with children. The labour-market integration of newly arrived mothers is of concern, and well directed social policy is crucial. Parental leave is based on residence, and until recently it was granted to all parents of foreign-born children of preschool age. Th...

Background Family policies can influence parents’ fertility behaviors, with consequences for perinatal health. The 1980 and 1986 Swedish speed premium policies aimed to protect parents’ income-based parental leave benefits within birth intervals shorter than 24 and 30 months, respectively, but additionally encouraged shorter birth spacing and child...

Objective: The study examines the age children in Iceland and Sweden start Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and how children’s starting age is associated with parents’ use of paid parental leave and their characteristics. Background: While children in Iceland have no legal rights to ECEC following the end of paid parental leave, in Sweden...

Couple relationships and money practices are intimately connected. Money can often cause disagreement and conflict within couples and represents symbolic values and expectations between partners. This study adopts a practices approach to exploring money practices among Swedish couples in the third age (60–80 years old) through 17 semi-structured in...

Objective This study explores whether relationship satisfaction among older individuals living with a partner is influenced by partners' status of working or being retired, and whether the degree of pooling money affects the association. Background Couple's spending decisions are likely influenced by the partner with the greatest bargaining power,...

Since the mid-1990s, most fathers in Sweden use parental leave, albeit for shorter durations than mothers. One major reason why most fathers use parental leave is the reserved month, often called the daddy’s month, which was introduced in 1995. The reserved month is based on a “use it or lose it” principle. Since the 1990s, two more months are rese...

Parenting leaves play a crucial part in supporting women’s labour force participation as well as men’s participation in infant care. A major question is who has access to such leave policies and earlier research has pointed out large variations in eligibility. This article focuses on the leaves that are available to recently arrived immigrants, par...

The Oxford International Handbook of Family Policy has two main aims: to identify key developments globally in regard to the forms and modalities of relevant policies, and to take a critical look at the developments regarding those policies. The overall goal is to uncover the extent to which concerns about the family and the role and practices of p...

Here we present the Familydemic Cross Country and Gender Dataset (FCCGD), which offers cross country and gender comparative data on work and family outcomes among parents of dependent children, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It covers six countries from two continents representing diverse welfare regimes as well as distinct policy reactio...

This book presents 23 in-depth case studies of successful public policies and programmes in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. Each chapter tells the story of the policy’s origins, aims, design, decision-making and implementation processes, and assesses in which respects—programmatically, process-wise, politically and over time—and to wh...

This book presents 23 in-depth case studies of successful public policies and programmes in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. Each chapter tells the story of the policy’s origins, aims, design, decision-making and implementation processes, and assesses in which respects—programmatically, process-wise, politically and over time—and to wh...

A major reason for the gendered division of parental leave use is the financial compensation during leave. Swedish national parental leave benefit provides 77.6 percent of earlier earnings up to an income ceiling, but collective agreements cover part of the income loss above the ceiling during leave. We focus on the importance of such collective ag...

Objective This study examines the roles of commitment and gender equality for marriage formation in a highly individualized and gender‐egalitarian context. Background Marriage is commonly perceived as a more committed form of union than cohabitation. Individualization perspectives propose that this discourages marriage formation, whereas gender pe...

Economic conflicts are likely to affect couples’ relationship, and different strategies of handling money may be important for how common such conflicts are. This study investigates whether couples’ choice of pooling money is associated with the occurrence of economic conflicts and whether different degree of pooling matters differently in differen...

This study investigates how partners’ money management strategies are associated with the experience of financial disagreements among older couples (60–80 years old). Money management is a broad concept, and this study operationalizes whether the partners pool all money, the partners pool some money, one partner manages the money (and gives a share...

Inspektionen för socialförsäkringen (ISF) har undersökt hur stor gruppen av pappor är som tar ut noll eller få dagar med föräldrapenning under barnets första två år, och hur storleken på gruppen har förändrats över tid. I rapporten undersöks pappor till barn födda under åren 1994–2017. När den första reserverade månaden infördes år 1995 var det 26...

Despite Sweden's national gender-neutral family and social policies, local differences in gender contracts exist and have been related to differences in the structure of the labour market and cultural traditions. Existing studies are outdated and used relatively large administratively defined areas, which may lead to several measurement and interpr...

Fathers’ leave use is promoted in many countries, but so far with different success. Major explanations of different usage revolve around economic bargaining between parents and economic constraints in the household. By using extensive register data from 1999–2009 in Finland and Sweden, this study asks whether fathers’ use of parental leave in the...

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 succe...

Introduction Sweden has long been praised for a generous parental leave policy oriented towards facilitating a gender-equitable approach to work and parenting. Yet certain aspects of Swedish parental leave could also be responsible for the maintenance of (or even the increase in) health inequalities. Using a ‘Health in All Policies’ lens, this rese...

This study examines adult children’s propensity to provide personal care to older mothers and fathers. The theory of intergenerational solidarity facilitates the understanding of commitment and support between adult children and parents. Solidarity may depend on childhood events as well as the current situation, and we therefore focus on whether th...

A central and unique part of Sweden’s family policy programme is care leave that working parents can use when children are sick and cannot attend (pre)school. The gender-equal policy entails that parents may divide the leave as they see fit. However, mothers and fathers do not share care leave equally and care leave patterns may vary geographically...

This contribution asks whether the most recent innovation of Nordic family policies, the so-called father quota, has been an object of policy learning in countries that followed the Nordic example of leave policies earlier, such as Germany, Slovenia, and Japan. Our case studies show that analyses of policy learning, especially in the social field,...

This article applies a couple perspective to assessing gender inequality in Sweden—a setting with high maternal labour force participation, a long history of family policy investment, and strong norms of gender equality. We address open questions about how couples’ earnings following parenthood have changed over time, and how patterns of inequality...

Den 1 mars år 2018 infördes en reform som innebär att underhållsstöd till föräldrar med barn som bor växelvis fasas ut och avskaffas helt år 2021. I stället infördes ett nytt bostadsbidrag för föräldrar med barn som bor växelvis. Enligt tidigare regler för bostadsbidrag har särlevande föräldrar med barn som bor växelvis inte haft likvärdiga förutsä...

It has been argued that a generous family policy aimed at a gender-equal division of childcare and economic responsibility will have a positive impact on childbearing. In this study, we investigate whether fathers’ parental leave use is related to continued childbearing and whether there has been a policy effect on fertility behavior due to the int...

Abstract Marriage is an institution that has become optional for many. This study investigates how decisions are taken regarding marriage among Swedish cohabiting couples in the twenty-first century, specifically focusing on whose intentions to marry are most decisive. We use the Young Adult Panel Study conducted in 2009 with augmented register dat...

Swedish family policy aims to give the same rights and responsibilities to mothers and fathers, regardless of their living arrangements. In terms of parental leave, this means that the father and the mother each get 8 months leave each to be used during their child’s preschool years, regardless of whether they separate. In practice, the father ofte...

With increasing union dissolution and changing gender behaviour, questions have emerged about possible links between gender equality and union stability. The aim of this article is to examine whether and how early fathers’ involvement in child-rearing is associated with union dissolution in three Nordic countries. All three countries have reserved...

Purpose 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 l...

The limited increase in fathers’ involvement in childcare tasks in response to the unprecedented rise in female labour market participation illustrates the incomplete nature of the gender revolution. Available research provides evidence for micro-economic mechanisms and the influence of gender norms and social policy design on couples’ gendered div...

https://socialpolicyblog.com/2019/08/19/forerunners-and-laggards-in-parental-leave-uptake-in-sweden/

Iceland was hit by a financial crisis in October 2008 and in the following year the ceiling on parental leave benefits was significantly lowered. The subsequent drop in fathers’ uptake of parental leave raises questions on whether the crisis endangered gender equality when it comes to how parents arranged care for their new-born. The article explor...

Sweden is often considered a forerunner in family change and developments towardsless gendered family production patterns. In this study, we focus on recent developmentstowards more gender-equal sharing of parental leave in Sweden. We explore how fathers’use of parental leave has changed over time before and since the turn of the century. Asthe par...

Much effort is currently going into developing leave policies for early parenthood; the results, though, are variable and uneven, due in large part to the politics of leave policy, with many issues, as we have argued, left unresolved. Moreover, much policy-making energy is narrowly focused. Rather than recent developments in leave representing the...

This chapter is about the design of Parental Leave policy and its relationship to leave-taking by fathers and gender equality more generally. The Nordic countries have historically emphasised gender equality in policymaking and have been in the forefront for introducing policies that encourage mothers and fathers to share responsibility for the car...

Parental Leave and beyond A book on Parental Leave policy sheds light on the situation of parents and young children in contemporary societies, but it cannot help but range into much broader questions: hence, the title of the book ‘Parental Leave and beyond’. Indeed, as well as a detailed focus on Parental Leave, the chapters in this volume bring t...

Leave high on the policy agenda Entitlements for workers to take leave from work for health or welfare reasons have been part of the policy scene for a long time. Maternity Leave for women, to protect their health before and after childbirth and that of their newborn children, was first introduced towards the end of the nineteenth century, and was...

Introduction The promotion of gender equality is a major aim behind many Parental Leave systems and an important part of the family policy discourse in all the Nordic countries, namely: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The extensive and well-paid leave rights for both men and women contribute to consistently placing these countries hig...

This volume brings together contributors from 18 countries to provide international perspectives on the politics of parental leave policies in different parts of the world. Initially looking in depth at the politics of care leave policies across Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia, the book moves on to consider a variety of key issues in depth,...

This study investigates how the childbearing intentions of women and men in couples affect actual childbearing over the following years with the aim to explore whether women’s or men’s intentions may be more important. The study is set in Sweden, a country known for ranking high in terms of gender equality and a country with relatively high fertili...

Despite Sweden's family policy existing at the national level, usage of these policies can vary substantially across regions and by gender suggesting a need for closer examination of local variance in these usages. The concept of 'gender contract', describes the systematic organization of a gender system that is constructed, controlled and reinforc...

Basic income is likely to gain momentum as the next social welfare trend to sweep over the world with ideas of how to improve the fairness and efficiency of distributing money. Other earlier movements with similar ambitions to transform societies, ranging across the political spectrum from socialism to neo-liberalism, have led to very different con...

The use of parental leave by fathers varies notably between countries. However, the underlying reasons for cross-country differences have not been explicitly studied. We use migration between Finland and Sweden as an instrument to decompose the roles of policy design and social norms in the differences in take-up rates between these two countries....

This study aims to investigate immigrant fathers’ use of parental leave for a first child in Sweden from 1995 to 2010. The issue of immigrant fathers’ uptake of parental leave is particularly well suited to assess the integrative aspects of family policies and for studying immigrants’ integration because it reflects labour market participation and...

L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner entre 1995 et 2010 le recours au congé parental chez les immigrés pères d’un premier enfant en Suède. Cela permet notamment d’évaluer dans quelle mesure les politiques familiales permettent de favoriser l’intégration, car cela reflète la participation au marché du travail et l’acceptation des normes d’égalit...

Elizabeth Adamson (2017) Nannies, migration and early childhood education and care: An international comparison of in-home childcare policy and practice, Bristol: Policy Press, £70.00, pp. 176, hbk. - Volume 48 Issue 1 - ANN-ZOFIE DUVANDER

The aim of reserving months for fathers in the Swedish parental leave system was to increase fathers’ use of leave as well as encourage gender equality in the home and labor market. Using data from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, this study investigates the effects of the reform – reserving one month of leave for fathers in 1995 and a second m...

This study analyses preferences regarding leave length, gender division of leave, and leave financing in four countries with different welfare-state and leave regimes. Embedded in a gender perspective, institutional, self-interest, and ideational theoretical approaches are used to explore the factors shaping individuals' preferences (ISSP 2012 data...

Sweden Stands out as a forerunner in the development of gender equality and family dynamics. To deepen the knowledge on power distribution and gender dynamics of couple relations, we investigate how women and mens childbearing intentions influence actual childbearing be-havior. The Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS) has Information on both partners' ch...

During the past 50 years the meaning of fatherhood and expectations for Swedish fathers has changed dramatically. Norms about masculinity, previously closely related to paid work and breadwinning, have partly been replaced by new ideals in which fathers are caring and active parents. This development has been partially policy-driven; since the 1960...

Jordens befolkning har de senaste 50 åren ökat med över fyra miljarder människor. Hur har det gått till? Är det för att vi lever längre eller för att vi skaffar fler barn? Är befolkningsökning positivt eller negativt? Varför domineras vissa befolkningar av barn medan andra åldras snabbt – och vad blir följderna av detta? För att svara på dessa frå...

Parental leave now or later? Immigrant women’s use of parental leave bene t Sweden is a welfare state with a family policy that strongly emphasizes equality without distinction according to place of birth or gender. In this study, we investigate the di erences in uptake of parental leave between native and immigrant women, and the connection to lab...

The gender differences in labor force participation and take-up of parental leave are accentuated in immigrant populations. This study examines whether certain policy features of parental leave are effective in leveling out the gendered differences among immigrants. We compare two distinct policy contexts, Finland and Sweden, and analyze the impact...

Den här artikeln ämnar ge en överblick över svensk föräldraförsäkring ur ett jämställdhetsperspektiv. Jag beskriver utvecklingen av försäkringen sedan dess införande på 1970-talet, samt hur och av vem föräldraledighet används. Därefter exemplifierar jag konsekvenser av användningen för fortsatt uppdelning av omvårdnad av barn och annat hushållsarbe...

Even though ideals in favor of gender equality in the private sphere are wide spread, discrepancies between ideals and actual behavior are common. Such discrepancies and potential dissatisfaction with gender unequal behavior within a couple are expected to influence partnership dynamics negatively. This study examines how discrepancies between the...

In 2008, Sweden introduced a cash-for-care benefit consisting of a flat-rate sum paid by municipalities to parents whose children were between the ages of one and three and who did not use publicly subsidised childcare. The main object of the reform was to increase parents? ?freedom to choose?, but the policy was criticised because of its potential...

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 t...

Recent family policy developments may blur conventional family policy typologies. While policies in some European welfare states are shifting away from strong male breadwinner regimes towards work–family reconciliation, the adding of cash for childcare (CFC) benefits in Nordic earner-carer welfare states points in the opposite direction. How can we...

Leave policies such as maternity, parental and paternity leaves enable employed parents to take job-protected time off work to care for their children. Such policies are implemented in most OECD countries, but there are substantial differences between countries. Little is known about what preferences individuals have regarding leave policies. What...

The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the development of parental leave in the Nordic countries in the last decade or so and explain the different approaches taken by individual countries in this regard. Focusing on recent developments, though mainly on the provision of a father's quota, we discuss whether we are actually witnessing...

Sweden is well known for its family policy and this study explores whether fathers’ parental leave is related to later division of childcare and housework. Two materials were used; a panel survey (2003, 2009) and an interview- study (2008). Respondents in the survey had their first child between the waves and the interview-study focused on parents...

This chapter investigates the potential effects of three major reforms in the Swedish parental leave for various subgroups of fathers. The reforms are the first, the second daddy’s quota month and the gender equality bonus introduced in 1995, 2002 and 2008. A difference in difference approach shows that the first daddy’s month reduced differences b...

Introduction Fathers’ increased parental leave use has been an objective in Sweden since the introduction of parental leave in 1974. Various strategies have been pursued to reach the goal, and numerous reforms have been introduced. In 1995, one month of parental leave was reserved as a quota for each parent, meaning that the month was forfeited if...

The five Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden -are well known for their extensive welfare system and gender equality which provides both parents with opportunities to earn and care for their children. In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as the UK and the US, demonstrate how modern fath...

A more equal division of parental leave use between parents has been a major political goal in Sweden for a long time, as it is assumed to lead to gender equality in the labor market, as well as in the homes. The assumed correlation between gender equality and shared parental leave has many aspects, but it has been investigated only in part. In thi...

Since the introduction of parental leave in Sweden a more gender-equal division of such leave has been targeted. In 1995 one month was reserved for each parent, implying that the month was forfeited if not used by the same parent. A second month was reserved in 2002. In 2008, a gender equality bonus was introduced, meaning that tax credits were giv...

Sweden is known for its policies aimed at facilitating the combination of work and family for both mothers and fathers. The parental leave insurance is one important part of these policies, considered to reduce the work-family conflict for women. However, there is scarce knowledge about the effects a long family leave break may have on women's occu...