We all want to be like progressive, enlightened Sweden – but even they don’t always get the work life balance right.

Sweden is often held up as a model for gender equality and work/life integration but even there, the rhetoric it seems, does not match the reality.

In a recent article Linda Haas, Professor of Sociology, at Indiana University, Indianapolis, delved into what was happening in Sweden, where even though the ‘dual-earner/dual-carer’ family model is deeply rooted in political and popular culture, the reality is that women still do most of the child care and unpaid domestic work.

There is substantial discrepancy between principles and practice, when it concerns women’s and men’s status in the labour market, Professor Haas found.

Swedish women are almost as likely as men to be in the paid labour market, but women are typically under-represented in power positions. For example, in 2008, only 21% of top management positions were occupied by women.

The Swedish labour market is also one of the most sex-segregated in the world. Half of women work in government jobs associated with women’s traditional role – health care, teaching, and social work. Meanwhile most men work in a larger variety of jobs in the private sector. Job segregation contributes to a gender wage gap, although this gap is small (9%) because of union contracts that offer equal pay for comparable work.

There is a substantial discrepancy between principles and practice when it comes to sharing housework and early childcare. Time-budget studies of working adults aged 20-64 show that Swedish women and men put in about the same amount of time if unpaid family work and paid employment are added together. However, women still spend more hours doing unpaid domestic work, and since 1990 men’s hours in unpaid domestic work have not increased.

And this is despite the fact that Sweden was the first nation in the world to offer wage-based parental leave to fathers in 1974. Today, fathers and mothers each have non-transferable right to two months of parental leave as well as an additional nine months to share. Since 2008 couples who share leave more evenly receive an ‘equality bonus’, a significant tax break.

Other family-supportive government family policies that Sweden pioneered include wage-based leave for children’s illnesses, reduced work hours, and guaranteed high-quality affordable places in government-subsidized centres for early childhood care and education starting at age one.

Companies, too, are obligated to establish ‘equality plans’ to promote horizontal and vertical job integration and men’s participation in parental leave.

While Swedish fathers are dedicated to developing close relationships with their children and involving themselves more in physical care giving in comparison to past generations, it is mothers who remain primarily responsible for children and make more accommodation in their participation in the labour force than men do – almost half of mothers work 30 hours or less a week, compared to about one-tenth of fathers.

While women have been encouraged to see paid work as an obligation, men’s participation in active parenting is still seen as more of a choice.

Women’s responsibility for child care negatively affects their lifetime wages, too, especially if they are out of the labour force for more than a year. While almost all fathers take parental leave, fathers take only 22% of all highly compensated days that parents take. Fathers also take only one-third of all leave days to care for sick children.

So, where to next in Sweden? Professor Haas said that over time, the dual-earner/dual-carer family model will likely become more institutionalised in Sweden because there is substantial political consensus that this model will help Sweden attain desired outcomes such as a healthy birth rate, increased children’s well-being, and economic productivity.

“There is also growing consensus in the business community that support for the dual-earner/dual-carer family model needs to be more highly prioritized,” she said.

“The government legislation that provides fathers with two months of highly paid leave that cannot be transferred to mothers has put pressure on employers to accommodate fathers’ interest in taking this leave.

“Companies have also come to recognize that men’s productivity can be enhanced when they are given new challenges that require new skills, such as those involved in participating more in childcare, especially being home on parental leave.

“Three quarters of profitable companies surveyed in 2006 stated that flexibility for fathers was becoming ‘smart business’. While there is a substantial gap between principle and practice when it concerns companies’ support for gender equality, it seems likely that over time, new ways of working may come to replace the less flexible patterns seen today.”

You can read more about Sweden’s strategy for gender equality in the labour market here:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/4096/a/130290