6 ms·

Sweden has successfully defeated low birth rates by making it more attractive for professional working women to have children. How? By not only giving maternity

Sweden has successfully defeated low birth rates by making it more attractive for professional working women to have children. How? By not only giving maternity leave, but also instituting "use it or lose it" paternity leave. This has in a way made it almost as "inconvenient" to hire a man, because the majority of men who never took any paternity leave (even when they could) now do, thus reducing discrimination.

gwern 14y ago
Why would adding it for men matter? Why wouldn't there be a dynamic where men simply don't take the paternity leave and life goes on as usual? Much the same way as maybe you don't technically have to work any overtime or past 40 hours a week (but everyone understands that if you do so, your career will go the way of the dodo and you'll be on the first list of pink slips).
- purplelobster 14y ago
  The way it works is that parents get 16 months (roughly) to split between them, but 2 of those are reserved for the father. If the father doesn't take them, then the mother doesn't get them either, hence "use it or lose it". This seems to have made it acceptable for men to take paternity leave, while before it wasn't. Men have an acceptable excuse in a way. It seems to really have changed the underlying attitude to the point where taking a few months paternity leave is the norm. It has a positive feedback loop: suddenly you can see fathers in town with strollers, so that in itself makes it more acceptable. Many have argued that legislation is not the way to deal with problems like these, but on the other hand it has been very successful in its goal to shape public opinion.
  - gwern 14y ago
    I don't see why that would change the dynamics: the men can still just skip the 2 months and continue to work and signal their loyalty to the company. I think there must be something cultural or economical going on: worker-protection laws, low unemployment rate, or something like that.

gwern 14y ago

Why would adding it for men matter? Why wouldn't there be a dynamic where men simply don't take the paternity leave and life goes on as usual? Much the same way as maybe you don't technically have to work any overtime or past 40 hours a week (but everyone understands that if you do so, your career will go the way of the dodo and you'll be on the first list of pink slips).

purplelobster 14y ago
The way it works is that parents get 16 months (roughly) to split between them, but 2 of those are reserved for the father. If the father doesn't take them, then the mother doesn't get them either, hence "use it or lose it". This seems to have made it acceptable for men to take paternity leave, while before it wasn't. Men have an acceptable excuse in a way. It seems to really have changed the underlying attitude to the point where taking a few months paternity leave is the norm. It has a positive feedback loop: suddenly you can see fathers in town with strollers, so that in itself makes it more acceptable. Many have argued that legislation is not the way to deal with problems like these, but on the other hand it has been very successful in its goal to shape public opinion.
- gwern 14y ago
  I don't see why that would change the dynamics: the men can still just skip the 2 months and continue to work and signal their loyalty to the company. I think there must be something cultural or economical going on: worker-protection laws, low unemployment rate, or something like that.