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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.
seven - Parental choice and the passion for equality in Finland
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- By Minna Salmi
- 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 145-168
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Summary
Introduction
In international comparison, Finland is a country with well-developed policies providing support to parents who combine employment and family. This active parenthood policy has been seen as an indicator of a strong equality policy (for example, den Dulk et al, 1999) but the achievements of that policy have also been problematised (for example, Rantalaiho and Heiskanen, 1997) and even questioned as a turn to neofamilialism (Mahon, 2002). This chapter examines recent developments in Finnish policies of parenthood. How do the rationales behind parenthood policies change? How do the policy schemes meet the challenge of gender equality? Whose voice is heard when policy reforms are made? The reforms and the rationales behind them are also related to the changes in working life and the goals of present-day European politics. How do ambitions to create good policies for parents and children fit into the demands of working life and the challenges of a changing population structure?
A survey of Finnish families provides data on parents’ response to the reforms. In the survey, mothers and fathers of children born in 1999 answered questions concerning their practices, wishes and opinions on how to take care of young children as well as on their experiences from the workplace when taking family leave and returning from the leave. The data were collected in 2001/02 from 3,295 mothers and 1,413 fathers. As the female and male respondents do not come from the same families, the data give a picture of practices and opinions in almost 5,000 Finnish families with young children.
I will focus particularly on two topics: first, the parents’ views on the arrangement of parental leave and how it should be shared between the parents, and second, the issue of parents’ choice of day care or a cash grant for care. I will discuss the parents’ views in relation to the rationales of the childcare reforms and the views expressed in the debate on these reforms by policy makers. I will also ask to what extent decisions on policy measures, on the one hand, and the ‘choices’ women make, on the other hand, can be explained by trends of re- or defamilisation, and to what extent they reflect the rather harsh development of the Western market economies, where the logic and ethos of the market seem to penetrate all areas of society (see Jacobs, 1992; Sauli et al, 2004).