Policy is not enough – the influence of the gendered workplace on fathers’ use of parental leave in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Paid parental leave for fathers is a promising social policy tool for degendering the division of labor for childcare. Swedish fathers have had the right to paid parental leave since 1974, but they take only one-fourth of leave days parents take. There are strong cultural norms supporting involved fatherhood, so couples typically want to share leave more than they do. This article explores how workplaces can constrain Swedish fathers’ use of state leave policy, in ways that fathers can take for granted, a topic that has received less attention than individual or family-related obstacles. Based on interviews with 56 employees in five large private companies, we found that masculine workplace norms can make it difficult for fathers to choose to take much leave, while aspects of traditional workplace structure building on these norms can negatively affect fathers’ capabilities of taking much leave. Workplace culture and structure seemed to be based on assumptions that the ideal worker should prioritize work and has limited caregiving responsibilities, setting limits to fathers’ ability to share leave with mothers. Gender theorists suggest such assumptions persist because of male dominance at the workplace and the endurance of gendered assumptions about the roles of men and women.

RESUMÉ

Le conge parental payé est une politique sociale prometteuse pour réduire la division genrée du travail quant au soin des enfants. Les pères suédois ont droit à un congé parental payé depuis 1974, mais ils ne prennent que le quart du total des jours de congé pris par les parents. Il y a de fortes normes culturelles qui soutiennent la paternité participative et en général les couples souhaitent partager le congé de manière plus égalitaire qu'ils ne le font en réalité. Cet article explore comment l’environnement de travail peut limiter l'usage que les pères font de leur droit au congé parental, et ce souvent sans qu’ils ne s’en rendent compte ; un sujet qui a reçu moins d’attention que les obstacles individuels ou familiaux. Sur la base d’entretiens avec 56 employés de cinq grandes entreprises, nous avons trouvé que les normes masculines de travail peuvent empêcher les pères de prendre davantage de congé, et que certains aspects de la structure traditionnelle de l’entreprise qui se fondent sur ces normes peuvent aussi affecter négativement la capacité des pères à prendre un congé plus long. La structure et la culture d’entreprise semblent fondées sur le présupposé que l’employé idéal doit privilégier son travail et qu’il a peu de responsabilités en matière de soins, ce qui limite la capacité des pères à partager le congé avec les mères. Les théoriciens du genre suggèrent que ces présupposés persistent à cause de la domination des hommes sur le lieu de travail et de la ténacité des normes genrées quant aux rôles des hommes et des femmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Sweden
• parental leave
• fathers
• companies

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Le conge parental payé
• les pères suédois
• la culture d’entreprise

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Linda Haas is Professor Emerita at Indiana University, USA. Her research focuses on parental leave policy and the impact of social policy on gender equality. Books include Equal Parenthood and Social Policy (1992) and Organizational Change and Gender Equity (with P. Hwang and G. Russell, 2000).

C. Philip Hwang is a Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has edited and authored close to 200 publications, including 13 book volumes of which the most recent are Developmental Psychology (with B. Nilsson, 2011, 3^rd edition); Psychology in Our Time (with I. Lundberg, and A.-C. Smedler, 2012) and Group Psychology (with Björn Nilsson, 2014).

Notes

1. Average amount of leave taken per child.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.