5 ms·

Why is Sweden paying grandparents to babysit?

77 points by surprisetalk 2y ago

mulletbum 2y ago
Genius
miffe 2y ago
https://archive.ph/Ivva9 https://archive.ph/Ivva9
deleted 2y ago
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callalex 2y ago
This article doesn’t speak at all to the fraud potential. Also the real answer to the question posed in the headline is that the most powerful voting blocks will naturally receive the highest subsidies in a democracy.
- loa_in_ 2y ago
  Heavens forbid elderly people get some more money every month. How much is it going to be for getting to elderly age and fostering successful children who raised their own children in turn?
  - MarkMarine 2y ago
    Babysitting queens
  - callalex 2y ago
    I make no value judgment on this policy, I’m just pointing out that systems have a natural outcome based on the incentive structure. Or, as Charlie Munger put it much more eloquently: “Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.” I wish more people, including voters but especially lawmakers, would use this analysis technique more often as it would lead to laws that actually accomplish what they claim.
  - simonsarris 2y ago
    It's kind of weird to say "Heavens forbid [the wealthiest age demographic] get some more money every month." Especially when that demo already tends to get a lot of cash transfers.
- itake 2y ago
  I'm sure there will be fraud, but does that matter? So what if a small percent of old people (that presumably need the money so bad they they are willing to commit fraud)? Better that than gma stealing from local businesses. The fraud should be a relatively small percent, as gparents should at least prove they have grandkids.
- deleted 2y ago
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- nullindividual 2y ago
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- smnrchrds 2y ago
  I am more worried about the potential for draconian anti-fraud measures, like the childcare benefits scandal in Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand...
- kalleboo 2y ago
  I don't think pensioners are a particularly strong voting bloc in Sweden. Youth election participation is among 80-90% (vs 50% in the US which you may be thinking about) and due to immigration the population pyramid is quite healthy.
xyzzy4747 2y ago
In the US a lot of people don't even know who their grandparents are. Lots of broken families and the decline of marriage. >Today, a new survey from Ancestry, the leader in family history, found more than half (53%) of Americans can't name all four grandparents – demonstrating a knowledge gap in key information about more recent family history.
- petermcneeley 2y ago
  "in this matter, the truth is that we haven't seen anything yet"
- acover 2y ago
  I don't know all of my grandparents names but they were all in my life.
  - xyzzy4747 2y ago
    Have you ever considered asking your parents?
    - acover 2y ago
      I never used their name when they were alive, they were morfar to me. I can pretty quickly find their name in Google but it doesn't stick in my brain.
    - bmacho 2y ago
      You can memorize your dead relatives names, but, like, why?
  - emmelaich 2y ago
    Pretty surprising to me; haven't you expressed some curiosity about your grandparents or had them talk about their lives. Ever seen your parents birth certificates or marriage certificates?
- nostrademons 2y ago
  Is some of that just that people tend to refer to grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa" and not their first names? And maiden names of grandmothers have long fallen into disuse by the time their grandchildren are born, if they didn't keep them? I think I didn't really know my maternal grandparents' names until they died and I looked at a family tree. My paternal grandfather's name isn't even well-defined: it's been butchered after 4 civil wars & invasions, 2 emigrations, different dialects, repeated anglicizations, and a change in the orthography of his native language.
willsmith72 2y ago
i love it. i know many grandparents who do at least 1 day of babysitting, and of course they love it and would never take money from their kids. in saying that, it's tiring work, especially depending on their age/mobility/condition. if this is what gets an extra parent working a couple more days, i love the idea of keeping the money in the family.
- dalke 2y ago
  My Mom's a widower living on her husband's pension. My sister and her spouse both work, with good incomes. Of course my sister paid my Mom to babysit the grandkids.
benreesman 2y ago
Alright so get this, some of the grandparents will be less encumbered by the frailties of advanced age, some more, but on average there will be enough childcare capacity to cover all of our forecasts. We can pool the grandparents into some kind of instrument, and if we pay a bunch of guys wearing Charvet ties in the City to price the risk correctly, we can sell a Babysitting Bond with a very compelling yield by securitizing this with favorable tax treatment…
- nocoiner 2y ago
  Hey, you joke, but I literally learned about liquidity traps through the parable of the babysitting co-op.
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dtquad 2y ago
These kind of incentives have definitely helped countering the declining birthrates in Denmark and Sweden. I wonder why people like Elon Musk and JD Vance often bring up Orban's Hungary and Putin's Russia as examples of countries that are successfully increasing birthrates when Denmark, Sweden, and Czechia have higher (native born) birthrates than both Hungary and Russia.
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- Narhem 2y ago
  Playing with babies has tons of positive benefits. Probably reduces the health care costs long term too.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  According to the World Bank, 2022 fertility rates were: Denmark 1.6 Czechia 1.6 Sweden 1.5 Hungary 1.5 Russia 1.4 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022&locations=DK-CZ-SE-HU-RU&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022... Pretty hard IMO to say much about the relative effect these policies are having at all, especially if you throw in other countries like Norway (1.4) and Finland (1.3).
  - tsunamifury 2y ago
    Yea almost all these places are at extinction level disaster birth rates.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      There are 8 billion people in the world, on track for 10 billion by 2100. A gradual decline towards ~4 billion people over the next ~150 years is not extinction. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/11/global-population-predictions-offer-hopeful-sign-for-planet-un-says https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/... https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2024_wpp_2024_advance_unedited_0.pdf https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...
rr808 2y ago
Are Scandanavian grandparents less family oriented? My friend married a Norwegian, she asked the retired mother in law if she could help baby sitting a day a week and the answer was no too busy sorry.
- Barrin92 2y ago
  Scandinavian societies in general are completely atomized, even more so than the US. Youngest people in the world to leave the parents home, highest rate of single person households, very few inter-generational households. Basically the same economic logic you have everywhere taken to its conclusion. As Gibson said the future's already here, just not evenly distributed. Grandparents-as-a-service is coming to the market near you.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    Wonder how the Vikings lived.
    - CogitoCogito 2y ago
      Almost everyone in Scandinavia during the Viking age were farmers. Only a very few were Viking warriors. So I'm guessing that the vast majority of Scandinavians lived quite similarly to all other farmers of the times at northern latitudes. Also I'm pretty sure that modern Swedes have more in common to modern North Koreans than either do to the Vikings. They lived in such different times and cultures that I don't really think it makes sense to compare them. Maybe you could ask how cold dark winters affected Vikings and how they affect modern Swedes, but even then the winters were much harder for Swedes 100 years back than they are today when the country is much richer. So really the inhabitants 1000 years back might as well be considered aliens compared to the Swedes of today.
    - piva00 2y ago
      In a farm, with a house building being shared by a large family or a few smaller ones, sharing beds in the same room to keep it warm during winter. Just like anywhere else in Europe at the time.
pokstad 2y ago
It’s sad that people are waiting so long to have kids to the point that their parents can’t participate anymore in being active grandparents.
- deleted 2y ago
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- DaoVeles 2y ago
  Alas as many have said elsewhere, it is a side effect of the economics systems around us that have caused this to occur.
  - pokstad 2y ago
    I bet that’s partially it. A lot of people don’t want to use their youth to raise kids, they want to use it to have fun. Nature however intended us to do differently.
  - BostonFern 2y ago
    It’s certainly also a cultural phenomenon. Most young people in their teens and twenties in the West do not want to start a family at a young age, and not only for economic reasons. It’s a priority to enjoy a lifestyle that’s not compatible with raising children or a marital commitment.
    - tayo42 2y ago
      I thought this, but part of me wonders if life maybe would have been better having kids at 20.i met someone who was 30 with basically independent kids. And then in your 30s and 40s you actually have money to enjoy the world with. Your also still pretty fit in your 30s, maybe not the peak of your fitness but it's not like we're all going pro at sports.
      - wvenable 2y ago
        I had kids both in my early 20s and again in my 30s and being a younger parent was better. You have more of a social life, you have more energy, you aren't as worried about things. I had way less money and lots of things were a struggle but then those were all the best memories. Now money is less of a problem and time is more of a problem.
nikolay 2y ago
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wood_spirit 2y ago
The article doesn’t feel anything like the author has any direct experience of Sweden or the Swedish welfare and childcare system (which is awesome btw; great country to be a parent as well as a child) In Sweden parents get 16 months of parental leave, to be taken before the child is 12. You get paid, but not your full salary. https://www.forsakringskassan.se/english/parents/when-the-child-is-born/parental-benefit https://www.forsakringskassan.se/english/parents/when-the-ch... A few years ago the “left” politics were trying to encourage dads to take parental leave, as mothers taking it all was making the women in the workforce less equal. And if money was the carrot then making some of the dads entitlement non-transferable was the stick. More recently the “right” is now in government and my gut reaction to hearing about this new change in policy is that it is probably trying to subtly reverse that? Seems likely.
- aaron695 2y ago
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  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    In the US at least, parental leave and other care obligations is what creates the gender wage gap [1] [2] [3]. Ergo, women being the gender to shoulder the care burden in Sweden, even with generous leave, still incurs an equality penalty. Interestingly, in Spain, when parental leave for men was made equal to women, men's desire for children declined [4]. The data also shows men desire children more than women in the US [5] and Finland [6]. Hot take thesis is that women still incur most of the cost of children, even in the most progressive socioeconomic systems. They know it, and it is a material contributing factor in the fertility rate decline. They obtain equality by opting out of reproduction, eliminating opportunity cost and other expensive penalties reproduction incurs. The cost of children is simply too damn high. Bonus comment from PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi: On Monday, PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival about her work-life balance. “The biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict,” she observed. Just as women are reaching middle management, kids need the most parenting and attention. Then when women move up the corporate ladder, they must turn their attention to aging parents. “We’re screwed. We cannot have it all.” [7] [1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-parental-leave-to-blame-for-the-gender-wage-gap https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-parental-leave-to-blame-for-th... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/20/the-link-between-parental-leave-and-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/20/the-link-... [3] https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-child... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/paid-paternity-leave-study-spain-men-fewer-children https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/paid-paternity... [5] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-you... [6] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/24748-in-finland-men-across-age-groups-are-more-likely-to-want-children-than-women.html https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2... [7] https://time.com/2954893/pepsico-ceo-women-cant-have-it-all/ https://time.com/2954893/pepsico-ceo-women-cant-have-it-all/
screye 2y ago
Hot take, but 3-generation nuclear families do not work if there are 30-35 years between generations. The average age of childbirth has gone by ~10 years over the last 50 years. So instead of having 22 yr old parents and 45 yr old grandparents.... you now have 32 yr old parents and 65 yr old grandparents. A 45 yr old grandparent is an able-bodied helper. A 65 yr old is a dependent. This is doubly true once you realize that obesity rates are rising and having grandparents as guests in cities is getting prohibitively expensive. Don't have a general-purpose solution at hand. All options feel horrible. But, we don't seem to be making much progress in aging....so grand parents will often find themselves needing to help when they need a lot of help themselves. To individuals, I'd recommend prioritizing your health. If you avoid cancer, hip replacements, and heart disease, then you can easily live to your late 80s in good health. It is the greatest gift you can give yourself or your children. Attia is popular in these parts, maybe start there. p.s : I am in a sermonizing mood after I realized how bad my cardio had gotten in a recent hike.
- ip26 2y ago
  Here’s hoping improvements in healthspan save the day.
  - screye 2y ago
    People need to want it. Most people eat worse and exercise less than the previous generation. A small visible minority do a lot more, but that doesn't speak to the health of the average individual. New GLP-1 agonists might medicate us into good health. But somehow, I am sceptical that it is going to be that simple.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  >This is doubly true once you realize that obesity rates are rising and having grandparents as guests in cities is getting prohibitively expensive. does this apply in Sweden?
  - screye 2y ago
    I don't know enough about Sweden to comment authoritatively. I'm guessing urban prices and obesity are not the main factors in Sweden. Here, my half-baked intuition is the state takes on a paternalistic relationship with the individual. It undermines family & partners as the primary support system. Sweden has very-high rates of single parenthood [1] and children outside wedlock [2]. If individuals place low importance on the family as a unit, then I do not see why baby-sitting would appeal to Grandparents (to derive joy or as a duty) In a way, being paid to babysit makes a pure relationship seem rather transactional. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/11581511/share+of+single+parents+with+children.jpg/1ac27ed2-4c80-2c3c-eb6b-06d1bb44225a?t=1622531761489 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/11581511/sha... [2] https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Comparison-Europe-US.webp https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Comparison-E...
p1dda 2y ago
[flagged]
4gotunameagain 2y ago
To add some context, it is perfectly acceptable in Swedish culture to have a friend of your child's over for a playdate, and NOT serve them dinner during dinner time. Instead, the child is playing alone in the room while the family eats their dinner.
- brnt 2y ago
  Wot? Why? Isn't the kid hungry too? Isn't mealtime social time in Sweden?
- Gud 2y ago
  Because their parents have made food for their children.
  - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
    Even if that is the case, which is not necessarily, in most cultures it would be unacceptable to not have the child join the family. Keep in mind that this is not judgement, just a window into how different Swedish culture can sometimes be.
- piva00 2y ago
  Are you just repeating a thread that went viral on reddit or have you had personal experience with this? Because after that reddit post I asked all of my Swedish friends who are parents, none of them said it'd be normal to not serve dinner to their kids playdates. And I don't think anyone said it's happened to them when they were kids either.
  - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
    I lived in the Nordics for many years, and I have interacted with plenty Swedish people. It is definitely not the norm, but it is definitely a wide spread phenomenon. Or at least it used to be more prevalent, as my sampling has an age bias. A quick duckduckgoing supports their claims: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/swedengate-sweden-dinner-guests-food-b2091012.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/swedengate-sweden-dinne... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/world/europe/sweden-feeding-guests-dinner.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/world/europe/sweden-feedi... https://www.thelocal.se/20220530/fact-check-do-swedish-parents-really-not-feed-kids-on-playdates https://www.thelocal.se/20220530/fact-check-do-swedish-paren...
frank_bb 2y ago
[dead]

77 points by surprisetalk 2y ago

mulletbum 2y ago

Genius

miffe 2y ago

https://archive.ph/Ivva9 https://archive.ph/Ivva9

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callalex 2y ago

This article doesn’t speak at all to the fraud potential. Also the real answer to the question posed in the headline is that the most powerful voting blocks will naturally receive the highest subsidies in a democracy.

loa_in_ 2y ago
Heavens forbid elderly people get some more money every month. How much is it going to be for getting to elderly age and fostering successful children who raised their own children in turn?
- MarkMarine 2y ago
  Babysitting queens
- callalex 2y ago
  I make no value judgment on this policy, I’m just pointing out that systems have a natural outcome based on the incentive structure. Or, as Charlie Munger put it much more eloquently: “Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.” I wish more people, including voters but especially lawmakers, would use this analysis technique more often as it would lead to laws that actually accomplish what they claim.
- simonsarris 2y ago
  It's kind of weird to say "Heavens forbid [the wealthiest age demographic] get some more money every month." Especially when that demo already tends to get a lot of cash transfers.
itake 2y ago
I'm sure there will be fraud, but does that matter? So what if a small percent of old people (that presumably need the money so bad they they are willing to commit fraud)? Better that than gma stealing from local businesses. The fraud should be a relatively small percent, as gparents should at least prove they have grandkids.
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nullindividual 2y ago
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smnrchrds 2y ago
I am more worried about the potential for draconian anti-fraud measures, like the childcare benefits scandal in Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand...
kalleboo 2y ago
I don't think pensioners are a particularly strong voting bloc in Sweden. Youth election participation is among 80-90% (vs 50% in the US which you may be thinking about) and due to immigration the population pyramid is quite healthy.

xyzzy4747 2y ago

In the US a lot of people don't even know who their grandparents are. Lots of broken families and the decline of marriage. >Today, a new survey from Ancestry, the leader in family history, found more than half (53%) of Americans can't name all four grandparents – demonstrating a knowledge gap in key information about more recent family history.

petermcneeley 2y ago
"in this matter, the truth is that we haven't seen anything yet"
acover 2y ago
I don't know all of my grandparents names but they were all in my life.
- xyzzy4747 2y ago
  Have you ever considered asking your parents?
  - acover 2y ago
    I never used their name when they were alive, they were morfar to me. I can pretty quickly find their name in Google but it doesn't stick in my brain.
  - bmacho 2y ago
    You can memorize your dead relatives names, but, like, why?
- emmelaich 2y ago
  Pretty surprising to me; haven't you expressed some curiosity about your grandparents or had them talk about their lives. Ever seen your parents birth certificates or marriage certificates?
nostrademons 2y ago
Is some of that just that people tend to refer to grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa" and not their first names? And maiden names of grandmothers have long fallen into disuse by the time their grandchildren are born, if they didn't keep them? I think I didn't really know my maternal grandparents' names until they died and I looked at a family tree. My paternal grandfather's name isn't even well-defined: it's been butchered after 4 civil wars & invasions, 2 emigrations, different dialects, repeated anglicizations, and a change in the orthography of his native language.

willsmith72 2y ago

i love it. i know many grandparents who do at least 1 day of babysitting, and of course they love it and would never take money from their kids. in saying that, it's tiring work, especially depending on their age/mobility/condition. if this is what gets an extra parent working a couple more days, i love the idea of keeping the money in the family.

dalke 2y ago
My Mom's a widower living on her husband's pension. My sister and her spouse both work, with good incomes. Of course my sister paid my Mom to babysit the grandkids.

benreesman 2y ago

Alright so get this, some of the grandparents will be less encumbered by the frailties of advanced age, some more, but on average there will be enough childcare capacity to cover all of our forecasts. We can pool the grandparents into some kind of instrument, and if we pay a bunch of guys wearing Charvet ties in the City to price the risk correctly, we can sell a Babysitting Bond with a very compelling yield by securitizing this with favorable tax treatment…

nocoiner 2y ago
Hey, you joke, but I literally learned about liquidity traps through the parable of the babysitting co-op.
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dtquad 2y ago

These kind of incentives have definitely helped countering the declining birthrates in Denmark and Sweden. I wonder why people like Elon Musk and JD Vance often bring up Orban's Hungary and Putin's Russia as examples of countries that are successfully increasing birthrates when Denmark, Sweden, and Czechia have higher (native born) birthrates than both Hungary and Russia.

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Narhem 2y ago
Playing with babies has tons of positive benefits. Probably reduces the health care costs long term too.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
According to the World Bank, 2022 fertility rates were: Denmark 1.6 Czechia 1.6 Sweden 1.5 Hungary 1.5 Russia 1.4 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022&locations=DK-CZ-SE-HU-RU&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022... Pretty hard IMO to say much about the relative effect these policies are having at all, especially if you throw in other countries like Norway (1.4) and Finland (1.3).
- tsunamifury 2y ago
  Yea almost all these places are at extinction level disaster birth rates.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    There are 8 billion people in the world, on track for 10 billion by 2100. A gradual decline towards ~4 billion people over the next ~150 years is not extinction. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/11/global-population-predictions-offer-hopeful-sign-for-planet-un-says https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/... https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2024_wpp_2024_advance_unedited_0.pdf https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...

rr808 2y ago

Are Scandanavian grandparents less family oriented? My friend married a Norwegian, she asked the retired mother in law if she could help baby sitting a day a week and the answer was no too busy sorry.

Barrin92 2y ago
Scandinavian societies in general are completely atomized, even more so than the US. Youngest people in the world to leave the parents home, highest rate of single person households, very few inter-generational households. Basically the same economic logic you have everywhere taken to its conclusion. As Gibson said the future's already here, just not evenly distributed. Grandparents-as-a-service is coming to the market near you.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  Wonder how the Vikings lived.
  - CogitoCogito 2y ago
    Almost everyone in Scandinavia during the Viking age were farmers. Only a very few were Viking warriors. So I'm guessing that the vast majority of Scandinavians lived quite similarly to all other farmers of the times at northern latitudes. Also I'm pretty sure that modern Swedes have more in common to modern North Koreans than either do to the Vikings. They lived in such different times and cultures that I don't really think it makes sense to compare them. Maybe you could ask how cold dark winters affected Vikings and how they affect modern Swedes, but even then the winters were much harder for Swedes 100 years back than they are today when the country is much richer. So really the inhabitants 1000 years back might as well be considered aliens compared to the Swedes of today.
  - piva00 2y ago
    In a farm, with a house building being shared by a large family or a few smaller ones, sharing beds in the same room to keep it warm during winter. Just like anywhere else in Europe at the time.

pokstad 2y ago

It’s sad that people are waiting so long to have kids to the point that their parents can’t participate anymore in being active grandparents.

deleted 2y ago
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DaoVeles 2y ago
Alas as many have said elsewhere, it is a side effect of the economics systems around us that have caused this to occur.
- pokstad 2y ago
  I bet that’s partially it. A lot of people don’t want to use their youth to raise kids, they want to use it to have fun. Nature however intended us to do differently.
- BostonFern 2y ago
  It’s certainly also a cultural phenomenon. Most young people in their teens and twenties in the West do not want to start a family at a young age, and not only for economic reasons. It’s a priority to enjoy a lifestyle that’s not compatible with raising children or a marital commitment.
  - tayo42 2y ago
    I thought this, but part of me wonders if life maybe would have been better having kids at 20.i met someone who was 30 with basically independent kids. And then in your 30s and 40s you actually have money to enjoy the world with. Your also still pretty fit in your 30s, maybe not the peak of your fitness but it's not like we're all going pro at sports.
    - wvenable 2y ago
      I had kids both in my early 20s and again in my 30s and being a younger parent was better. You have more of a social life, you have more energy, you aren't as worried about things. I had way less money and lots of things were a struggle but then those were all the best memories. Now money is less of a problem and time is more of a problem.

nikolay 2y ago

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wood_spirit 2y ago

The article doesn’t feel anything like the author has any direct experience of Sweden or the Swedish welfare and childcare system (which is awesome btw; great country to be a parent as well as a child) In Sweden parents get 16 months of parental leave, to be taken before the child is 12. You get paid, but not your full salary. https://www.forsakringskassan.se/english/parents/when-the-child-is-born/parental-benefit https://www.forsakringskassan.se/english/parents/when-the-ch... A few years ago the “left” politics were trying to encourage dads to take parental leave, as mothers taking it all was making the women in the workforce less equal. And if money was the carrot then making some of the dads entitlement non-transferable was the stick. More recently the “right” is now in government and my gut reaction to hearing about this new change in policy is that it is probably trying to subtly reverse that? Seems likely.

aaron695 2y ago
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- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  In the US at least, parental leave and other care obligations is what creates the gender wage gap [1] [2] [3]. Ergo, women being the gender to shoulder the care burden in Sweden, even with generous leave, still incurs an equality penalty. Interestingly, in Spain, when parental leave for men was made equal to women, men's desire for children declined [4]. The data also shows men desire children more than women in the US [5] and Finland [6]. Hot take thesis is that women still incur most of the cost of children, even in the most progressive socioeconomic systems. They know it, and it is a material contributing factor in the fertility rate decline. They obtain equality by opting out of reproduction, eliminating opportunity cost and other expensive penalties reproduction incurs. The cost of children is simply too damn high. Bonus comment from PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi: On Monday, PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival about her work-life balance. “The biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict,” she observed. Just as women are reaching middle management, kids need the most parenting and attention. Then when women move up the corporate ladder, they must turn their attention to aging parents. “We’re screwed. We cannot have it all.” [7] [1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-parental-leave-to-blame-for-the-gender-wage-gap https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-parental-leave-to-blame-for-th... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/20/the-link-between-parental-leave-and-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/20/the-link-... [3] https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-child... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/paid-paternity-leave-study-spain-men-fewer-children https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/paid-paternity... [5] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-you... [6] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/24748-in-finland-men-across-age-groups-are-more-likely-to-want-children-than-women.html https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2... [7] https://time.com/2954893/pepsico-ceo-women-cant-have-it-all/ https://time.com/2954893/pepsico-ceo-women-cant-have-it-all/

screye 2y ago

Hot take, but 3-generation nuclear families do not work if there are 30-35 years between generations. The average age of childbirth has gone by ~10 years over the last 50 years. So instead of having 22 yr old parents and 45 yr old grandparents.... you now have 32 yr old parents and 65 yr old grandparents. A 45 yr old grandparent is an able-bodied helper. A 65 yr old is a dependent. This is doubly true once you realize that obesity rates are rising and having grandparents as guests in cities is getting prohibitively expensive. Don't have a general-purpose solution at hand. All options feel horrible. But, we don't seem to be making much progress in aging....so grand parents will often find themselves needing to help when they need a lot of help themselves. To individuals, I'd recommend prioritizing your health. If you avoid cancer, hip replacements, and heart disease, then you can easily live to your late 80s in good health. It is the greatest gift you can give yourself or your children. Attia is popular in these parts, maybe start there. p.s : I am in a sermonizing mood after I realized how bad my cardio had gotten in a recent hike.

ip26 2y ago
Here’s hoping improvements in healthspan save the day.
- screye 2y ago
  People need to want it. Most people eat worse and exercise less than the previous generation. A small visible minority do a lot more, but that doesn't speak to the health of the average individual. New GLP-1 agonists might medicate us into good health. But somehow, I am sceptical that it is going to be that simple.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>This is doubly true once you realize that obesity rates are rising and having grandparents as guests in cities is getting prohibitively expensive. does this apply in Sweden?
- screye 2y ago
  I don't know enough about Sweden to comment authoritatively. I'm guessing urban prices and obesity are not the main factors in Sweden. Here, my half-baked intuition is the state takes on a paternalistic relationship with the individual. It undermines family & partners as the primary support system. Sweden has very-high rates of single parenthood [1] and children outside wedlock [2]. If individuals place low importance on the family as a unit, then I do not see why baby-sitting would appeal to Grandparents (to derive joy or as a duty) In a way, being paid to babysit makes a pure relationship seem rather transactional. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/11581511/share+of+single+parents+with+children.jpg/1ac27ed2-4c80-2c3c-eb6b-06d1bb44225a?t=1622531761489 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/11581511/sha... [2] https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Comparison-Europe-US.webp https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Comparison-E...

p1dda 2y ago

[flagged]

4gotunameagain 2y ago

To add some context, it is perfectly acceptable in Swedish culture to have a friend of your child's over for a playdate, and NOT serve them dinner during dinner time. Instead, the child is playing alone in the room while the family eats their dinner.

brnt 2y ago
Wot? Why? Isn't the kid hungry too? Isn't mealtime social time in Sweden?
Gud 2y ago
Because their parents have made food for their children.
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  Even if that is the case, which is not necessarily, in most cultures it would be unacceptable to not have the child join the family. Keep in mind that this is not judgement, just a window into how different Swedish culture can sometimes be.
piva00 2y ago
Are you just repeating a thread that went viral on reddit or have you had personal experience with this? Because after that reddit post I asked all of my Swedish friends who are parents, none of them said it'd be normal to not serve dinner to their kids playdates. And I don't think anyone said it's happened to them when they were kids either.
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  I lived in the Nordics for many years, and I have interacted with plenty Swedish people. It is definitely not the norm, but it is definitely a wide spread phenomenon. Or at least it used to be more prevalent, as my sampling has an age bias. A quick duckduckgoing supports their claims: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/swedengate-sweden-dinner-guests-food-b2091012.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/swedengate-sweden-dinne... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/world/europe/sweden-feeding-guests-dinner.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/world/europe/sweden-feedi... https://www.thelocal.se/20220530/fact-check-do-swedish-parents-really-not-feed-kids-on-playdates https://www.thelocal.se/20220530/fact-check-do-swedish-paren...

frank_bb 2y ago

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