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 occupational careers and the studies on the topic so far mainly refer to the period up to the early 1990s. In addition, issues of selectivity are seldom dealt with. In the present study, we focus on mothers’ leave-taking behaviour in the period from 1974 to 2000 and estimate the relationship between family leave length and the transition rate to an upward occupational move upon return to work. Data from the nationally representative Swedish Level of Living Survey of 1991 and 2000 are used. The results indicate that women with leaves of 16 months or more were less likely to experience an upward occupational move once back on the job again. In a multilevel, multiprocess model including terms for unobserved heterogeneity, the main results remain, and we conclude that even after controlling for selectivity into different parental leave length, we find a negative effect of time out on subsequent career moves.

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 fertility. We use the Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS), which gives information about both partners' long-term childbearing intentions in 2009, and follow these couples for five years with register data on childbearing. In 30 percent of the couples, both partners intended to have a child, and out of these about three quarters have a child. The results show that, in general, both partners need to intend to have a child for the couple to do so but that women's intentions tend to have more influence over the decision to have a second or third child. This phenomenon is interpreted as decision-making in relation to the cost and utility of children for women and men.

Demographic theories maintain that family policies that support gender equality may lead to higher fertility levels in postindustrial societies. This phenomenon is often exemplified by the situation in the Nordic countries. These countries have parental le

Sweden is often considered a forerunner in family change and developments towards less gendered family production patterns. In this study, we focus on recent developments towards 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. As the parental leave benefit is individual and earnings-based, we examine how fathers’ individual socio-economic and demographic characteristics are associated with their parental leave uptake over time, to determine whether there are forerunners and laggards in recent family change. Multinomial logistic regression models were applied to data from national registers. Our study demonstrates a bifurcation in trends in recent decades. This is associated with the extension of reforms that reserve part of the leave for fathers, the so-called “daddy months”, but stretches beyond the impact of any such reforms. Taking a long leave of over two months was pioneered by better-educated residents of metropolitan areas and surrounding suburbs, as well as Swedish-born fathers. Young fathers, low-income earners and foreign-born fathers lagged behind in these developments. We regard the unstable labour market situation of the latter as a contributing factor in widening social inequalities in family-related behaviour.

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 understand growing family policy hybridisation? Comparison of CFC schemes in the five Nordic countries is the empirical basis of the discussion here – what does the insertion of such a familistic policy measure actually mean? The analysis displays diverse national policy processes and policy outputs and wide variation in parents’ responses to this policy incentive. Reforms have been subject to conflicts and amendments to different degrees, and impact has been shaped by their institution at different times distinguished by mothers’ varying access to childcare services and labour markets. We conclude that conceptualisation of CFC schemes needs to be contextualised in relation to political dynamisms and opportunity structures.