Sweden encourages that a shared responsibility be placed on both mothers and fathers concerning both the family’s income and domestic care. In order to achieve such a balance, the country strives to attain a model of a dual earner/duel-carer household. This is achieved when both men and women participate equally in household and childcare tasks while providing a significant portion of the household’s earnings. The outcome of this kind of model ensures a well-rounded and fulfilling experience for both men and women as individuals and parents.

Dual-Earners:
In order to accomplish the task of dual-earning, Sweden understands the importance of including women in the workforce as well as making sure that gender equity is taken seriously in the workplace. An important facilitating factor that improves this dual-earner potential is the relatively shorter workweek that Sweden utilizes.  Since the government actively encourages both parents to work, a shorter workweek has been put into collective agreement and labor law.  By statute, forty hours of work are the maximum per week in Sweden.

Dual-Carers:
While incorporating women as a major part of the workforce helps to make certain that the dual earner mentality is attainable, ensuring that men are active at home is a more difficult undertaking.  Sweden approached this situation by encouraging fathers to take a more active role in the realm of early childcare through generous leave policies.

Potential for Conflict:
Despite the ideal that Sweden hopes to accomplish a dual-earner/dual-carer model, there still exists the same brand of work-family conflict that exists elsewhere.  Work-Family conflict is defined as when a person sees their role in either their professional domain or their personal life as incompatible with the other. It does not take a social scientist to decipher that gender is still at the core this conflict. In Sweden, women still make 80% of what men’s earnings, and this gap in gender wages has not changed since the 1980s. Also, although men are aware of their ability to take leave and many do use it, Swedish fathers still only use about 12% of the total amount of paternal leave days available.

Even as some of the old gender ideology still exists within Sweden, the country’s progress through policies in shifting attitudes about shared responsibility in the office and the home are significant in setting themselves apart from their global contemporaries.



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