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How divorce is boosting gender equality in Sweden – new study

9 points by rustoo 2y ago

readthenotes1 2y ago
I had to maneuver against the predominant expectations in my country to get equal time with my child as a father. Sweden is on a good track, for that to be the expectation. Short of 100% time for all parents, an equal split is the next best option. A "visiting parent" cannot parent, there is simply not enough time...
austin-cheney 2y ago
Opposite-sex couples in Sweden, and more broadly across the world, tend to fall into a manager-helper dynamics, in which the mother takes on the full administrative and mental workload and only delegates specific tasks for the father to fulfil. This is a dynamic that over time seems inevitable and impossible to break. In most couples I am personally aware of, both now and in the past, most males DO NOT want this. Early in marriage females tend to want this, especially if the given female is not heavily invested in a career. It seems to be both empowering and task sharing so that the male can focus on bread winning, but it’s a control play, a game of personalities and power distribution. This becomes clear later in marriage as both financial responsibilities and children mature and may be a primary factor in relationship resentment.
- arghnoname 2y ago
  It's just easier for individuals to 'own' certain shared responsibilities, but inevitably the other can be prone to resent having lesser participation and access to the positives of the other's responsibility (e.g., time with children, career aspirations). Since we now live in a time where there are fewer social constraints in how households are arranged, people really should be explicit in what they want and revisit the issue periodically to minimize resentment.
  - shermantanktop 2y ago
    It can change over time. The deal that makes sense in house with toddlers may not make sense when the kids are gone and the primary breadwinner has gained many responsibilities. Nobody anticipates this, because the patterns are set 20 years before. What I described is maybe stereotypical, but the point remains that relationships tend to stick to patterns even while conditions change.
arghnoname 2y ago
I wish we had a richer language to discuss these issues. 'Equality' defined as having near equal tasks is not necessarily something that everyone thinks is an unalloyed good, whereas equality defined as having equal value as human being is. We conflate these two issues. There are people who would prefer specialization in their household roles. Traditionally this was along gender lines, but it doesn't have to be (e.g., both parents are women, one prefers more traditional mothering roles, the other more traditionally masculine roles). If there is good complementarity and both roles are treated with equal dignity, this doesn't seem bad to me, anymore than specialization that exists throughout our society. I wonder how much divorce rates and adherence to traditional roles are correlated as well, which seems like an obvious confounding factor. Anyway, yes I'm sure if you have divorces where each now separate household has equal responsibility and time to provide care giving to children, you're going to get more equal time and effort put into providing care giving to children.
- artyom 2y ago
  I agree with this. Nobody can be exactly the same amount of good at everything. What the current system in the west (NOT Sweden) encourages people to is: for a 50/50 scenario; as a man, you'll have to pay alimony, child support, work, and take care of the kids. As a woman, alimony and child support are rare to non-existent, work is optional, and taking care of the kids is an imposition from the patriarchy. As a man, you can dispute the money part IF you keep the kids 50% of the time at least, but oh boy, there's a million scenarios where things may be based purely on hope: Hopefully you'll get a judge that has common sense and doesn't just want to avoid dealing with the feminist crowd (or actually believes in those claims). Hopefully you won't get a false domestic violence claim, which automatically "believes the victim". Hopefully you won't experience the child's custody being weaponized to get more money. Most men simply walk away from all that (and no, that's no justification, they're being horrible fathers - or no fathers at all - by doing so). The equality discourse revolves around the division of labor in a family being just an imposition of the supposed patriarchy which rules the world. There's no historical fact checking that can support such claim. The right tends to claim that "raising the next generation is the most important job in the world" while at the same time refusing to put ANY money on it (see the Finland example, with very extended parental leaves, financial support, and public schools). The left tends to enable woman to do whatever they want, with no accountability, on the premise that they were oppressed from the patriarchy (so it's time for payback I guess?). Children are the last thing anyone cares in both scenarios. The reality is that whatever we're trying to do right now is really far away from the "success rate" of the nuclear family. Even same-gender couples with kids tend to evolve into husband/wife dynamics eventually. Also, stop giving examples from Escandinavia, nobody else functions (or legislates) like that. It has little to do with the money they have, and more to do with their culture and heritage. I'm aware of the irony of giving a Finland example myself.
motohagiography 2y ago
maybe there is a new co-parenting arrangement viable enough to be the example. it's sensitive topic, but the deadbeat dad trope that the surprise in these findings is predicated on denies women agency and responsibility for their circumstances. It's provocative and makes discourse about what a new arrangement could be impossible. It's worth dropping it and filtering anything that depends on it.

9 points by rustoo 2y ago

I had to maneuver against the predominant expectations in my country to get equal time with my child as a father. Sweden is on a good track, for that to be the expectation. Short of 100% time for all parents, an equal split is the next best option. A "visiting parent" cannot parent, there is simply not enough time...

austin-cheney 2y ago

Opposite-sex couples in Sweden, and more broadly across the world, tend to fall into a manager-helper dynamics, in which the mother takes on the full administrative and mental workload and only delegates specific tasks for the father to fulfil. This is a dynamic that over time seems inevitable and impossible to break. In most couples I am personally aware of, both now and in the past, most males DO NOT want this. Early in marriage females tend to want this, especially if the given female is not heavily invested in a career. It seems to be both empowering and task sharing so that the male can focus on bread winning, but it’s a control play, a game of personalities and power distribution. This becomes clear later in marriage as both financial responsibilities and children mature and may be a primary factor in relationship resentment.

arghnoname 2y ago
It's just easier for individuals to 'own' certain shared responsibilities, but inevitably the other can be prone to resent having lesser participation and access to the positives of the other's responsibility (e.g., time with children, career aspirations). Since we now live in a time where there are fewer social constraints in how households are arranged, people really should be explicit in what they want and revisit the issue periodically to minimize resentment.
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  It can change over time. The deal that makes sense in house with toddlers may not make sense when the kids are gone and the primary breadwinner has gained many responsibilities. Nobody anticipates this, because the patterns are set 20 years before. What I described is maybe stereotypical, but the point remains that relationships tend to stick to patterns even while conditions change.

arghnoname 2y ago

I wish we had a richer language to discuss these issues. 'Equality' defined as having near equal tasks is not necessarily something that everyone thinks is an unalloyed good, whereas equality defined as having equal value as human being is. We conflate these two issues. There are people who would prefer specialization in their household roles. Traditionally this was along gender lines, but it doesn't have to be (e.g., both parents are women, one prefers more traditional mothering roles, the other more traditionally masculine roles). If there is good complementarity and both roles are treated with equal dignity, this doesn't seem bad to me, anymore than specialization that exists throughout our society. I wonder how much divorce rates and adherence to traditional roles are correlated as well, which seems like an obvious confounding factor. Anyway, yes I'm sure if you have divorces where each now separate household has equal responsibility and time to provide care giving to children, you're going to get more equal time and effort put into providing care giving to children.

artyom 2y ago
I agree with this. Nobody can be exactly the same amount of good at everything. What the current system in the west (NOT Sweden) encourages people to is: for a 50/50 scenario; as a man, you'll have to pay alimony, child support, work, and take care of the kids. As a woman, alimony and child support are rare to non-existent, work is optional, and taking care of the kids is an imposition from the patriarchy. As a man, you can dispute the money part IF you keep the kids 50% of the time at least, but oh boy, there's a million scenarios where things may be based purely on hope: Hopefully you'll get a judge that has common sense and doesn't just want to avoid dealing with the feminist crowd (or actually believes in those claims). Hopefully you won't get a false domestic violence claim, which automatically "believes the victim". Hopefully you won't experience the child's custody being weaponized to get more money. Most men simply walk away from all that (and no, that's no justification, they're being horrible fathers - or no fathers at all - by doing so). The equality discourse revolves around the division of labor in a family being just an imposition of the supposed patriarchy which rules the world. There's no historical fact checking that can support such claim. The right tends to claim that "raising the next generation is the most important job in the world" while at the same time refusing to put ANY money on it (see the Finland example, with very extended parental leaves, financial support, and public schools). The left tends to enable woman to do whatever they want, with no accountability, on the premise that they were oppressed from the patriarchy (so it's time for payback I guess?). Children are the last thing anyone cares in both scenarios. The reality is that whatever we're trying to do right now is really far away from the "success rate" of the nuclear family. Even same-gender couples with kids tend to evolve into husband/wife dynamics eventually. Also, stop giving examples from Escandinavia, nobody else functions (or legislates) like that. It has little to do with the money they have, and more to do with their culture and heritage. I'm aware of the irony of giving a Finland example myself.

motohagiography 2y ago

maybe there is a new co-parenting arrangement viable enough to be the example. it's sensitive topic, but the deadbeat dad trope that the surprise in these findings is predicated on denies women agency and responsibility for their circumstances. It's provocative and makes discourse about what a new arrangement could be impossible. It's worth dropping it and filtering anything that depends on it.