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The State as a Norm‐Builder? The Take‐up of Parental Leave in Norway and Sweden
Author(s) -
Bergqvist Christina,
Saxonberg Steven
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/spol.12251
Subject(s) - norwegian , rationality , ideal (ethics) , duty , norm (philosophy) , sociology , legal norm , parental leave , social psychology , state (computer science) , gender studies , psychology , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics , algorithm , computer science , work (physics) , mechanical engineering , engineering
This study shows that although Norway and Sweden have rather similar family policies, the seemingly small differences that exist reflect different national ideals of care, and these differences encourage parents to employ different gendered moral rationalities. However, Sweden's ideal of ‘equal‐sharing/professional care’, encourages fathers to take longer leaves than the Norwegian ideal of ‘partial sharing plus choosing between professional or parental care’. Given their different national ideals of caring, different gendered moral rationalities emerge. While in Norway the dominant gendered moral rationality among our interviewees is ‘man‐doing‐his‐duty’, in Sweden two different rationalities arise: the ‘breastfeeding‐plus‐sharing’ rationality and the ‘male‐opt‐out’. This conclusion is based on 60 interviews with mothers and fathers in Oslo and Stockholm.