The State as a Norm-Builder? The Take-up of Parental Leave in Norway and Sweden

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.