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eleven - Gender equality: Parental Leave design and evaluating its effects on fathers’ participation
- Edited by Peter Moss, University College London Institute of Education, Ann-Zofie Duvander, Stockholm universitet, Sociologiska institutionen, Alison Koslowski, The University of Edinburgh
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- Book:
- Parental Leave and Beyond
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 27 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 17 April 2019, pp 187-204
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Summary
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 high on gender equality rankings, such as, for example, the Global Gender Gap (World Economic Forum, 2016). Entitlement to leave rights alone is not sufficient to create gender equality, but Nordic fathers increasingly make use of the legislation, which should move these countries towards that goal. Leave legislation is the cornerstone for the take-up of leave by fathers and any subsequent impact this may have, but take-up is also related to other labour market legislation, ECEC services and other arrangements, as well as cultural norms that restrict or enable Parental Leave use.
Often-mentioned outcomes of fathers taking Parental Leave are that they become more involved in childcare, and that it enhances the earlier return of mothers to paid employment; job-protected Parental Leave has historically proved important primarily for mothers’ labour market participation and work hours. Other outcomes referred to in the Nordic countries include relatively low child poverty rates and relatively high fertility rates. Mothers’ and fathers’ Parental Leave use, as well as their division of leave, may have an immediate effect on sharing childcare and household work. It may also in the long run consolidate a certain gendered division of responsibility for these tasks. However, generous leave entitlements may weaken parents’ positions in the labour market and reduce career opportunities if employers expect them to take long spells out of working life.
Even if the Parental Leave system in the Nordic countries is part of a policy context that generally seeks to encourage gender equality, for example through the support of shared parenthood and protection of parents in the labour market, there is still a long way to go. The Nordic countries have highly gender-segregated labour markets, a persistent gender wage gap, and women do most unpaid housework and childcare. This is partly related to the fact that women still use much more of the entitlement to Parental Leave than men (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2016).
fourteen - Policy goals and obstacles for fathers’ parental leave in Finland
- Edited by Guðný Björk Eydal, Tine Rostgaard, Stockholms universitet Institutionen för socialt arbete
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- Book:
- Fatherhood in the Nordic Welfare States
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 26 November 2014, pp 303-324
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Summary
Introduction
In Finland, as in all of the other Nordic countries, the improvement of gender equality has been one of the primary objectives of parental leave policy. Supporting working motherhood and emphasising caring fatherhood are the two sides of this endeavour (Ellingsater and Leira, 2006). In recent decades, Finnish leave policy has also thus aimed to achieve a more equal sharing of parental leave by encouraging fathers to take more leave.
Despite this longstanding goal and policy redesign, Finnish fathers’ take-up of parental leave has increased slowly compared to the other Nordic countries (see Chapters Six, Thirteen, Fifteen and Sixteen, this volume). In 2012, Finnish fathers took only 9 per cent of all parental benefit days. In this chapter, the focus is on the obstacles to a more equal sharing of parental leave in Finland: why do more fathers not take more parental leave?
The obstacles to more active leave take-up among fathers have generally been located as family finances, pressures of work and the tradition of a gendered division of labour (see Brandth and Kvande, 2006, 2012; see also Chapters One and Six, this volume). This chapter deals with these dimensions, but the main focus is on the policy process, on its role in the construction of leave schemes, and in the framing of fathers’ use of parental leave. In Finland, leave policy development is part of a special working life policy design in which labour market partners have played a significant role over the past 40 years (Lammi-Taskula and Takala, 2009; Alaja, 2011). Central employer and employee organisations are involved in decisions concerning incomes and social benefits as well as working hours and work–family reconciliation. The state has often taken the initiative, but the actual negotiations have taken place in tripartite groups consisting of central employer and employee organisations and the government. Practically no parental leave legislation has been introduced without a unanimous decision in these tripartite negotiations.
In this chapter, the development of fathers’ leave take-up is analysed as an issue of choice and change. The analysis is based on a combination of policy evaluation and survey data.
six - Finland: negotiating tripartite compromises
- Edited by Sheila Kamerman, Columbia University, New York, Peter Moss, University College London Institute of Education
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- Book:
- The Politics of Parental Leave Policies
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 05 July 2022
- Print publication:
- 22 July 2009, pp 87-102
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Summary
Maternity leave: 105 working days at 90% of earnings up to a ceiling of €46,207 during the first 56 days of leave, with a lower percentage for higher earnings; subsequently, payment is at 70% of earnings up to €30,033, with a lower percentage for higher earnings.
Paternity leave: 18 working days at 70% of earnings up to €30,034, with a lower percentage for higher earnings.
Parental leave: 158 working days per family at 75% of earnings up to a ceiling €46,207 during the first 30 days, with a lower percentage for higher earnings; subsequently payment is at 70% of earnings up to €30,033, with a lower percentage for higher earnings. A further 12 ‘bonus’ days are available for fathers who take the last 2 weeks of parental leave. Leave can be taken part time, at 40-60% of full-time hours, but only if both parents take part-time leave and only with the employer's agreement. Benefit payments are reduced accordingly.
Leave to care for sick children: up to 4 days per child per illness, for parents of children under 10 years, with no limits on how often parents can take leave. Level and length of payment depend on collective agreements, but often at full earnings.
Other: childcare leave, referred to as ‘home care leave’, can be taken from the end of parental leave until a child's third birthday. A parent taking leave receives a home care allowance: a basic payment of €294.28 per month + €94.09 for every other child under 3 years + €60.46 for every other pre-school child over 3 years + a means-tested supplement (up to €168 per month). Some local authorities, especially in the Helsinki area, pay a municipal supplement to the home care allowance.
Parents can work reduced working hours from the end of parental leave until the end of the child's second year at school. The employee should negotiate the reduction with the employer, who may refuse only if the reduced working hours would lead to serious disadvantages for the organisation; in that case, working hours must be a maximum of 30 hours a week. Employees taking partial childcare leave before the child's third birthday or during the child's first and second year at school are entitled to €70 a month.
four - Nordic men on parental leave: can the welfare state change gender relations?
- Edited by Anne Lise Ellingsæter, Arnlaug Leira
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- Book:
- Politicising Parenthood in Scandinavia
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 15 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 07 June 2006, pp 79-100
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Summary
Promoting fatherhood at the policy and institutional level can produce more symmetrical definitions of women and men as parents than will exist without such promotion. But does the politicising of fatherhood really ‘make men into fathers’ (Hobson, 2002)? Men are facing a challenge to increasingly share the responsibilities of family life at the same time as women have become an important part of the labour market. From the early 1990s, fatherhood has been a focus area in the development of parenthood policies. In order to encourage more men to take parental leave, individual and non-transferable rights for fathers have been legislated.
Changes in gender relations at the institutional level are expected to change the gendered practices of work–family reconciliation. The way men and women think, act and feel is, however, also influenced by the workplace culture (Haas et al, 2002) as well as by family negotiations (Olsen, 2000). Thus the politicising of parenthood to promote fathercare does not necessarily produce radical changes in the division of paid and unpaid work in everyday life.
In the Nordic countries, parental leave schemes have been available for men since the 1970s, but men have not taken up the opportunities nearly as much as had been expected (Leira; Borchhorst, this volume). The daddy quota of parental leave has been the main instrument in promoting fathers’ take-up of the leave. The introduction of a quota has increased the number of men who take parental leave (Brandth and Överli, 1998; Haas et al, 2002; Rostgaard, 2002). The quota is a challenge to the traditional division of care work. Decisions about sharing or not sharing parental leave are no longer totally up to the parents. The idea of the quota is the same in all countries – this leave period is reserved for the father – but there is variation in the actualisation in different Nordic countries (Rostgaard, 2002). The timing and the policy arguments have been different. The length of the quota varies, as well as the level of individual care responsibility, in other words, whether the father is the primary carer during his leave. Variation at the institutional level is related to differences in the gendered division of labour and power in everyday life, that is, to the take-up patterns of parental leave and the effects these patterns have for women's and men's positions in the labour market as well as at home.