Open AccessParental Leave Reforms in Finland 1977–2019 from a Diversity Perspective
Author(s) -
Anna Moring,
Johanna Lammi-Taskula
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
social inclusion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.511
H-Index - 17
ISSN - 2183-2803
DOI - 10.17645/si.v9i2.3796
Subject(s) - parental leave , diversity (politics) , perspective (graphical) , statutory law , gender equality , sociology , focus (optics) , gender studies , demographic economics , political science , law , economics , work (physics) , mechanical engineering , artificial intelligence , computer science , engineering , physics , optics
In Finland, all parents, regardless of gender, are eligible for parental leave and there are no restrictive eligibility criteria. In practice, however, the statutory leave options are not equally available to all parents. Since the 1970s, steps have been taken in redesigning the leave scheme to make it more inclusive. Several reforms have been made to promote equality, mainly between women and men, but also between diverse families, such as adoptive families, multiple-birth families or same-sex parent families. The ‘demotherisation’ of parental-leave rights has slowly shifted the focus from biological mothers to fathers and non-biological parents. In the most recent reforms, the focus has widened from equality between parents to include equality between children regardless of the form of the family that they are born or adopted into.