Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
Nannies and au pairs in Swedish families? Really? The initial reaction when we began our research study some years ago was often surprise. One might have heard of Swedish girls going to the UK or US, or maybe France, in the gap year between high school and university, but who comes to work as an au pair in Sweden? Are there nannies in Sweden? Are not all Swedish children taken care of by publicly funded daycare centres?
Indeed, signs of there being nannies and au pairs employed by Swedish families had occurred earlier. In the beginning of the 21st century, a number of scandals unfolded in the Swedish media regarding the use of domestic care workers in certain high-profile well-off families, testifying to the actual prevalence of these groups. In 2006, the media reported that two women MPs in the newly elected Conservative–Liberal government had hired several domestic workers over the years, including nannies and au pairs, all undeclared and at very low pay. The Conservative Party leader, Fredrik Reinfeldt, soon to be prime minister, had also hired au pairs, it was reported. The scandal – which included the testimonies of former nannies and au pairs about harsh conditions of working in ‘posh’ families in upper-class areas – led to the MPs resigning from their positions, less than two weeks after their commencement. Fredrik Reinfeldt's use of au pairs, however, was found to be within the rules of the Migration Agency and of no liability to him becoming prime minister.
A couple of months later, in the beginning of 2007, this newly elected government presented their first reforms. One of them was a tax deduction for domestic services, such as those provided by cleaners and nannies. The problem, according to the government, was clearly not the use of the services, as such, but rather that they were too expensive. This was the reason why people turned to the informal market if they wanted to employ cleaners, nannies and au pairs, just as the two fired MPs had done. By making the informal market formal, it was argued, several problems could be solved (Bill 2006/07 no. 94). Work opportunities for the unemployed could be created, thought to be especially suitable for migrants and other groups having a hard time getting into the labour market.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.