7 ms·

Two New Moms Return to Work – One in Seattle, One in Stockholm

83 points by kevinconaway 7y ago

jdmoreira 7y ago
I'm a dad in Stockholm and currently in the first month of my parental leave which is expected to last at least more 6 months. My girlfriend just went back to work. Our daughter is 11 months old. I worked 75% from the time she was 6 months old until a month ago when I went for a 100% parental. My employer pays me a bonus on top of the state money as a perk. As far as I am concerned I can’t even imagine it being any other way. I understand how fortunate I am to be in Sweden. It truly is an amazing system.
- vidarh 7y ago
  I'm Norwegian, and the Norwegian system is similar to the Swedish. I live in the UK, though, and so I've seen how expensive and inflexible UK policy, which is much closer to US is Vs. for my brother in Norway. I don't understand how people on more normal incomes do it in places like the UK and US.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    It is very difficult. I recently spoke with my best friend who has a 1.5 hour commute each day. He sees his children for an hour in the morning. He comes home around 9pm.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    > I don't understand how people on more normal incomes do it in places like the UK and US. They simply have a worse quality of life. Hand the baby off to older family members or daycare and spend 50 hours or more per week at work or commuting to work, and spend maybe 3 to 4 hours a day if that with their infant, with which they still need to cook, clean, excercise, etc. And looking around at many people, clearly they’re sacrificing many of those life enhancing activities in exchange for a little bit of financial security and the hope they or their kids can make it out of the bottom 90%, so that maybe they can spend some time with their babies.
  - mattlondon 7y ago
    Not sure it is so bad in the UK now that we have shared parental leave: I am a father of a recent newborn and I get to share 12 months off (well, 50 weeks since my wife must take at least the first 2 weeks after birth herself) with my wife for our newborn son. We're getting approx £600 a month (so I guess 800-900USD depending on exchange rates today) of free money during the first year from the government (maternity allowance), before any payments from employers. Not amazing amounts of free money, but helps pay for some essentials and considering we are both earning fairly huge salaries I was surprised we were entitled to anything at all. My employer is actually pretty generous and I as a partner I am getting several months off at full pay - most partners will get only 2 weeks off unless they make use of the shared parental leave, but the "major" employers all have similar generous parental leave perks from what I know. Both my wife and I are legally gauranteed our jobs back when we return as far as I understand it, and from what I know we can request 80% time etc, or some other flexible arrangement and it must be considered fairly and allowed if feasible. I have been really impressed with the NHS. Obviously everything ante-natal and post-partum was 100% free (including parenting classes in addition to the clinical stuff). What has really impressed me has been the free home visits by the midwives and nurses in the days and weeks after birth - an amazing service to just have midwives turn up 2 days afterwards and check that mother baby (and father!!!!!) are doing ok, then to continue getting home visits in the following weeks. Really impressed. We paid to get some extra private scans done earlier in the pregnancy for peace of mind etc, but otherwise the NHS has been excellent for this (and I don't usually sing it any praise for normal services) As for childcare I don't know yet - from what I gather childcare is a cluster-fuck in the UK with oversubscription and fairly high costs (e.g. £100/day in London for 8am-8pm) outside of the public nurseries. There are some things available for this I think (childcare vouchers for 30hours a week of free childcare?) but I don't know anything about it. So tl;Dr: 365 Vs 480 days off, 800USD+100% salary Vs 3700USD, potentially oversubscribed public or expensive private daycare Vs cheap public daycare.
    - vidarh 7y ago
      What you describe (generous employer payments etc.) is far from the norm in the UK, though. Yes, it's possible to be in a decent situation in the UK too, but usually when you're already in a professional privileged position.
kasperni 7y ago
And did you know there are actually more billionaires-per-capita in Sweden than in the USA [1]? Norway as well. So it's actually possible to have both an amazing welfare system and loads of billionaires at the same time. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-ranked-by-billionaires-in-proportion-to-population-2015-7?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-ranked-by-billiona...
- alltakendamned 7y ago
  Though the background of billionaires tends to be different. Lots of business owner in the US, lots of old money in SE. I'd say there's less opportunities for social mobility in Sweden than in the US, hard to get beyond the "middle class"
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    I dunno, mobility in the US is hard and getting harder. I don't know about Sweden, but escaping the middle class in the US requires a massive income.
  - vlangber 7y ago
    Not according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
  - kasperni 7y ago
    Actually, the 5 Nordic countries are identical to the top 5 countries for social mobility in the World Economic Forum's Global Social Mobility Index [1]. [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-countries-with-the-best-social-mobility/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-coun...
  - piva00 7y ago
    I call bullshit on this one. I know and have seen many people become successful in Sweden growing out of lower/middle-class. It's much easier to do it when you have free access to quality education, regardless to your current social standing, where people have safety nets so they are able to take risks instead of having to cling to their job that also provides their health insurance. The US seems to suffer of some kind of fetishisation of suffering, where you see those heart warming stories that look great on the surface (poor kids getting scholarships because of some sport, single parents making their way out of poverty juggling 2 jobs and getting an education and so on) but that shouldn't ever be a great story for the richest society in history... Social mobility in the US is a fight against odds, not a possibility, people still have some social mobility DESPITE American society policies, not because of them. Imagine how many people in the US could be contributing with an idea to a great product/company if they knew they could run out of their savings and still not be homeless, without health insurance and not starving? If the US allowed normal people to take risks when they see opportunities it'd be an even richer society, not even accounting for the overall happinness, lowest levels of stress and all of the ill side-effects of the current state of American society.
stanski 7y ago
It always amazes me that even poor European countries have better maternity leave provisions than the richest country in the world.
- martin_bech 7y ago
  The US is the riches country in the world. The US cannot afford basic healthcare for all. One of these sentences most be wrong.
  - spamizbad 7y ago
    The US loves to burn the furniture to heat the cabin, then pat itself on the back for reducing heating costs.
  - ratboy666 7y ago
    No. You have to define how a country can be rich. And what "basic healthcare" is. And what "for all" means. A country cannot be rich. Its people can be. If you have a definition that differs, we can discuss. I am going to avoid "basic healthcare" for now. We can discuss "for all". Does that mean for people born in the country? Or does it really mean "for all people"? FredW
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      Wealth per person, healthcare that covers all medical needs (preventative care, illness, injury, end of life care dental, vision) but not all elective needs (some cosmetic surgeries, etc), and for all means all humans within the borders.
  - creddit 7y ago
    Yes, the "cannot" is factually incorrect.
- jsjddbbwj 7y ago
  That's why they are poor.
martin_bech 7y ago
As a Scandinavian, the US seems like a third world country. I am genuinely sad for you.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Americans sometimes joke that we live in a third world country. Many people here are dissatisfied with our family and healthcare policies, but no one seems to know how to actually fix it. Obamacare wasn't really a good solution. It was just the most politically viable. So you need more than a good plan for what works better. You also need to somehow get it accepted politically and that ends up being a sticking point.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    How to fix it? Get involved with your local DSA chapter. Work on putting socialists on your local ballot and getting initiatives passed locally. Educate your friends and neighbors that 'socialist' policies are much broader than what has been demonized in the US since the red scare. Edit: Also, consider unionizing and bargaining for parental leave, healthcare, living wages, employee board representation, etc.
    - senderista 7y ago
      Scandinavian countries are not socialist and using the word "socialist" (as Bernie does) to advocate for social-democratic policies is both inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing.
      - Pfhreak 7y ago
        Democratic socialists and social democrats agree on many policies, and both are largely absent from the political stage in the US.
    - matchbok 7y ago
      Except that isn't what we are talking about.
dmd149 7y ago
The article acknowledges that tax rates are significantly higher in Sweden in order to pay for these benefits. Has anyone modeled typical take home income (after taxes) over a lifetime vs the costs of procuring similar parental services in each country (daycare for example)? My hypothesis would be that in the US, you’d probably still come out ahead in net income even after paying for these services. Could be wrong of course, but that’s my best guess.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Some study indicated American parents are extremely stressed out in comparison to most parents in most developed countries and are less happy overall because of it. I'm not sure I could find the study again. It was posted on Metafilter some years ago. I'm banned from Metafilter and have zero plans to spend my time trying to dig through Metafilter to find it.
- OzzyB 7y ago
  I'm happy to accept your hypothesis that US citizens will come out on top for lifetime net income, but this article was about the human costs, like having children or not. What cost is forgoing having a family? Is that even calculated? My hypothesis is that it's not and all those people that simply weren't able to have a child because of work and healthcare costs are simply, and conveniently, ignored. It's ok though, we can always import more fresh meat into the great American Dream.
  - dmd149 7y ago
    The example was about the human costs sure, but very much closely tied to things related to income (job security, costs of child care, etc.). But let’s keep it to the family. Say between the age of 25 and 35 an American will be able to take home an extra 10k per year compared to a Swede. 100k an extra savings goes a long way to being able to take care of a new child or start a family. Not saying my hypothetical is accurate, but the question about take-home pay vs costs is relevant to the topic of this article.
    - 7y ago
cryptica 7y ago
That's the result of having a country with a smaller population. This gives citizens more even access to quality education and more even access to all kinds of opportunities.
- polotics 7y ago
  That is super weird logic, very interesting. How do you think can a smaller population change anything?
  - cryptica 7y ago
    It's supply and demand. A higher supply of people means that each person has lower value. You get a similar effect if you move to a big city after having lived in a small or medium sized town. People who move to big cities voluntarily turn themselves into commodities; they end up renting tiny apartments which cost a lot and can barely afford to save anything and they can be quickly fired from their jobs due to high competition. As population size increases, the baseline value of a human being goes down. The baseline value of a human being is the value of the person after the value of their skills and capital have been factored out.
badrabbit 7y ago
The article talks about federal gov not doing things better. Maybe it should,but the way america works is that these sorts of laws are left for individual states. America has a lot of problems like this,states should do better but voters don't really care much about state politics. I can tell you a majority of americans probably don't even know who their governor is(I think I do but not really sure). On top of that,it's not very hard to move a business between states or for people in general to move around so states have to compete with one another on being friendly to economic contributors. I am sure it is much more complex, but I do think the root cause lies in the american constitution and the role played by federal and state governments. The federal gov should either be a whole lot more capable(or overreaching for some) or a whole lot less significant,forcing popular politics to be centered at the state level.
quietthrow 7y ago
This thread is quite timely in that I just watched a great documentary about the differences between America and Sweden. If you have amazon prime it’s free to watch on prime video. https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/dp/B07HNDHL6H https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/...

83 points by kevinconaway 7y ago

I'm a dad in Stockholm and currently in the first month of my parental leave which is expected to last at least more 6 months. My girlfriend just went back to work. Our daughter is 11 months old. I worked 75% from the time she was 6 months old until a month ago when I went for a 100% parental. My employer pays me a bonus on top of the state money as a perk. As far as I am concerned I can’t even imagine it being any other way. I understand how fortunate I am to be in Sweden. It truly is an amazing system.

vidarh 7y ago
I'm Norwegian, and the Norwegian system is similar to the Swedish. I live in the UK, though, and so I've seen how expensive and inflexible UK policy, which is much closer to US is Vs. for my brother in Norway. I don't understand how people on more normal incomes do it in places like the UK and US.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  It is very difficult. I recently spoke with my best friend who has a 1.5 hour commute each day. He sees his children for an hour in the morning. He comes home around 9pm.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  > I don't understand how people on more normal incomes do it in places like the UK and US. They simply have a worse quality of life. Hand the baby off to older family members or daycare and spend 50 hours or more per week at work or commuting to work, and spend maybe 3 to 4 hours a day if that with their infant, with which they still need to cook, clean, excercise, etc. And looking around at many people, clearly they’re sacrificing many of those life enhancing activities in exchange for a little bit of financial security and the hope they or their kids can make it out of the bottom 90%, so that maybe they can spend some time with their babies.
- mattlondon 7y ago
  Not sure it is so bad in the UK now that we have shared parental leave: I am a father of a recent newborn and I get to share 12 months off (well, 50 weeks since my wife must take at least the first 2 weeks after birth herself) with my wife for our newborn son. We're getting approx £600 a month (so I guess 800-900USD depending on exchange rates today) of free money during the first year from the government (maternity allowance), before any payments from employers. Not amazing amounts of free money, but helps pay for some essentials and considering we are both earning fairly huge salaries I was surprised we were entitled to anything at all. My employer is actually pretty generous and I as a partner I am getting several months off at full pay - most partners will get only 2 weeks off unless they make use of the shared parental leave, but the "major" employers all have similar generous parental leave perks from what I know. Both my wife and I are legally gauranteed our jobs back when we return as far as I understand it, and from what I know we can request 80% time etc, or some other flexible arrangement and it must be considered fairly and allowed if feasible. I have been really impressed with the NHS. Obviously everything ante-natal and post-partum was 100% free (including parenting classes in addition to the clinical stuff). What has really impressed me has been the free home visits by the midwives and nurses in the days and weeks after birth - an amazing service to just have midwives turn up 2 days afterwards and check that mother baby (and father!!!!!) are doing ok, then to continue getting home visits in the following weeks. Really impressed. We paid to get some extra private scans done earlier in the pregnancy for peace of mind etc, but otherwise the NHS has been excellent for this (and I don't usually sing it any praise for normal services) As for childcare I don't know yet - from what I gather childcare is a cluster-fuck in the UK with oversubscription and fairly high costs (e.g. £100/day in London for 8am-8pm) outside of the public nurseries. There are some things available for this I think (childcare vouchers for 30hours a week of free childcare?) but I don't know anything about it. So tl;Dr: 365 Vs 480 days off, 800USD+100% salary Vs 3700USD, potentially oversubscribed public or expensive private daycare Vs cheap public daycare.
  - vidarh 7y ago
    What you describe (generous employer payments etc.) is far from the norm in the UK, though. Yes, it's possible to be in a decent situation in the UK too, but usually when you're already in a professional privileged position.

kasperni 7y ago

And did you know there are actually more billionaires-per-capita in Sweden than in the USA [1]? Norway as well. So it's actually possible to have both an amazing welfare system and loads of billionaires at the same time. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-ranked-by-billionaires-in-proportion-to-population-2015-7?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-ranked-by-billiona...

alltakendamned 7y ago
Though the background of billionaires tends to be different. Lots of business owner in the US, lots of old money in SE. I'd say there's less opportunities for social mobility in Sweden than in the US, hard to get beyond the "middle class"
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  I dunno, mobility in the US is hard and getting harder. I don't know about Sweden, but escaping the middle class in the US requires a massive income.
- vlangber 7y ago
  Not according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
- kasperni 7y ago
  Actually, the 5 Nordic countries are identical to the top 5 countries for social mobility in the World Economic Forum's Global Social Mobility Index [1]. [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-countries-with-the-best-social-mobility/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-are-the-10-coun...
- piva00 7y ago
  I call bullshit on this one. I know and have seen many people become successful in Sweden growing out of lower/middle-class. It's much easier to do it when you have free access to quality education, regardless to your current social standing, where people have safety nets so they are able to take risks instead of having to cling to their job that also provides their health insurance. The US seems to suffer of some kind of fetishisation of suffering, where you see those heart warming stories that look great on the surface (poor kids getting scholarships because of some sport, single parents making their way out of poverty juggling 2 jobs and getting an education and so on) but that shouldn't ever be a great story for the richest society in history... Social mobility in the US is a fight against odds, not a possibility, people still have some social mobility DESPITE American society policies, not because of them. Imagine how many people in the US could be contributing with an idea to a great product/company if they knew they could run out of their savings and still not be homeless, without health insurance and not starving? If the US allowed normal people to take risks when they see opportunities it'd be an even richer society, not even accounting for the overall happinness, lowest levels of stress and all of the ill side-effects of the current state of American society.

stanski 7y ago

It always amazes me that even poor European countries have better maternity leave provisions than the richest country in the world.

martin_bech 7y ago
The US is the riches country in the world. The US cannot afford basic healthcare for all. One of these sentences most be wrong.
- spamizbad 7y ago
  The US loves to burn the furniture to heat the cabin, then pat itself on the back for reducing heating costs.
- ratboy666 7y ago
  No. You have to define how a country can be rich. And what "basic healthcare" is. And what "for all" means. A country cannot be rich. Its people can be. If you have a definition that differs, we can discuss. I am going to avoid "basic healthcare" for now. We can discuss "for all". Does that mean for people born in the country? Or does it really mean "for all people"? FredW
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    Wealth per person, healthcare that covers all medical needs (preventative care, illness, injury, end of life care dental, vision) but not all elective needs (some cosmetic surgeries, etc), and for all means all humans within the borders.
- creddit 7y ago
  Yes, the "cannot" is factually incorrect.
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
That's why they are poor.

martin_bech 7y ago

As a Scandinavian, the US seems like a third world country. I am genuinely sad for you.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Americans sometimes joke that we live in a third world country. Many people here are dissatisfied with our family and healthcare policies, but no one seems to know how to actually fix it. Obamacare wasn't really a good solution. It was just the most politically viable. So you need more than a good plan for what works better. You also need to somehow get it accepted politically and that ends up being a sticking point.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  How to fix it? Get involved with your local DSA chapter. Work on putting socialists on your local ballot and getting initiatives passed locally. Educate your friends and neighbors that 'socialist' policies are much broader than what has been demonized in the US since the red scare. Edit: Also, consider unionizing and bargaining for parental leave, healthcare, living wages, employee board representation, etc.
  - senderista 7y ago
    Scandinavian countries are not socialist and using the word "socialist" (as Bernie does) to advocate for social-democratic policies is both inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      Democratic socialists and social democrats agree on many policies, and both are largely absent from the political stage in the US.
  - matchbok 7y ago
    Except that isn't what we are talking about.

dmd149 7y ago

The article acknowledges that tax rates are significantly higher in Sweden in order to pay for these benefits. Has anyone modeled typical take home income (after taxes) over a lifetime vs the costs of procuring similar parental services in each country (daycare for example)? My hypothesis would be that in the US, you’d probably still come out ahead in net income even after paying for these services. Could be wrong of course, but that’s my best guess.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Some study indicated American parents are extremely stressed out in comparison to most parents in most developed countries and are less happy overall because of it. I'm not sure I could find the study again. It was posted on Metafilter some years ago. I'm banned from Metafilter and have zero plans to spend my time trying to dig through Metafilter to find it.
OzzyB 7y ago
I'm happy to accept your hypothesis that US citizens will come out on top for lifetime net income, but this article was about the human costs, like having children or not. What cost is forgoing having a family? Is that even calculated? My hypothesis is that it's not and all those people that simply weren't able to have a child because of work and healthcare costs are simply, and conveniently, ignored. It's ok though, we can always import more fresh meat into the great American Dream.
- dmd149 7y ago
  The example was about the human costs sure, but very much closely tied to things related to income (job security, costs of child care, etc.). But let’s keep it to the family. Say between the age of 25 and 35 an American will be able to take home an extra 10k per year compared to a Swede. 100k an extra savings goes a long way to being able to take care of a new child or start a family. Not saying my hypothetical is accurate, but the question about take-home pay vs costs is relevant to the topic of this article.
  - 7y ago

cryptica 7y ago

That's the result of having a country with a smaller population. This gives citizens more even access to quality education and more even access to all kinds of opportunities.

polotics 7y ago
That is super weird logic, very interesting. How do you think can a smaller population change anything?
- cryptica 7y ago
  It's supply and demand. A higher supply of people means that each person has lower value. You get a similar effect if you move to a big city after having lived in a small or medium sized town. People who move to big cities voluntarily turn themselves into commodities; they end up renting tiny apartments which cost a lot and can barely afford to save anything and they can be quickly fired from their jobs due to high competition. As population size increases, the baseline value of a human being goes down. The baseline value of a human being is the value of the person after the value of their skills and capital have been factored out.

badrabbit 7y ago

The article talks about federal gov not doing things better. Maybe it should,but the way america works is that these sorts of laws are left for individual states. America has a lot of problems like this,states should do better but voters don't really care much about state politics. I can tell you a majority of americans probably don't even know who their governor is(I think I do but not really sure). On top of that,it's not very hard to move a business between states or for people in general to move around so states have to compete with one another on being friendly to economic contributors. I am sure it is much more complex, but I do think the root cause lies in the american constitution and the role played by federal and state governments. The federal gov should either be a whole lot more capable(or overreaching for some) or a whole lot less significant,forcing popular politics to be centered at the state level.

quietthrow 7y ago

This thread is quite timely in that I just watched a great documentary about the differences between America and Sweden. If you have amazon prime it’s free to watch on prime video. https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/dp/B07HNDHL6H https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/...