Greater regulation of parental leave does not lead to greater gender equality, despite what the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees’ (TCO) Equality Index implies. On the contrary, it risks pushing people into situations that are every bit as restrictive and damaging as those that existed when parental leave was effectively regarded as a women’s responsibility.
Kristina takes all the parental leave with little Anna because her husband Karl-Oskar’s farm would otherwise go bankrupt. When Karl-Oskar comes in from the cowshed, he takes over responsibility for Anna and also carries out virtually all household work during the remaining sixteen hours of the day.
Question: Which parent is disadvantaged by gender inequality?
Answer: Kristina.
At least that is the conclusion one reaches if one accepts the logic of TCO’s Equality Index. The index takes parental leave uptake into account but ignores how responsibility for the child is divided during the rest of the day and how household labour is shared. Nor does it capture the financial consequences of parental leave for each parent, or whether one parent’s occupation in practice limits their ability to take leave.
All of these factors clearly influence family decisions without necessarily reflecting a lack of gender equality.
That parental leave uptake is a poor proxy for equality is also reflected in statistics from Statistics Sweden (SCB), which show that men and women work roughly the same total number of hours on average. Men perform more paid work, while women undertake more unpaid domestic labour. Women also earn approximately 95 per cent of what men earn once factors such as occupation, education and working hours are taken into account.
Another weakness of the index is that it focuses exclusively on economic measures, despite the fact that most people plainly value their children more highly than financial outcomes. In strictly economic terms, having children is almost always a financial loss.
Nor does the index measure whether decisions regarding parental leave were preceded by respectful discussions between two equal partners. Yet many would argue that this is the very essence of equality.
Equality is therefore a complex issue that cannot be reduced to a single variable. That does not seem to trouble TCO, however, which describes women’s use of approximately 70 per cent of parental leave days as a problem.
When Free Choice Is Replaced by Social Engineering
Most people agree that gender-based expectations can restrict people’s perceived choices. Many also believe that this ought to be addressed.
But when an analysis is built upon flawed premises, it is hardly surprising when it produces ineffective solutions.
TCO, for example, argues that changes to the parental insurance system are needed in order to accelerate a more equal distribution of parental leave.
Such measures might well influence the distribution to some extent, although additional regulation is unlikely to have the same dramatic effect as previous reforms. What is far less clear is whether they would produce greater equality.
For Karl-Oskar, somewhat ironically, the result could easily be less equality at his expense.
The political steering of parental leave has, in many respects, been successful. It has demonstrated both to men and to employers that fathers can take parental leave and are expected to do so. It has created favourable conditions for fathers to build close relationships with their children, expanded mothers’ opportunities to participate in working life, and contributed to the greater equality reflected in SCB’s figures.
But increasing—or even maintaining—the current level of regulation now comes at the expense of the majority of families who already have genuinely equal relationships when it comes to these matters.
The choices families make, based on their own circumstances and preferences, are effectively dismissed in favour of detailed political management that lacks any clear potential to produce greater equality.
It is social engineering at its most intrusive.
This article was first published in Smedjan on 13 March 2019.
