nt level of living for everyone rather than letting market forces provide a wide range of choices only to those who can afford it. Family policy is one of the cornerstones of the Swedish welfare system and has attracted considerable attention in other countries, especially in recent years when Sweden has had one of the highest fertility rates in Europe and labor-force participation rates for women have been at a record high (Dey).Sweden does not have an official pro-natalist (pro-life) family policy. Instead, Swedish family policy has been designed with three objectives in mind, namely: to promote equality between men and women; that all childbirths should be wanted childbirths; and to guarantee all children a reasonable standard of living (Laack). Since Swedish family policy is so strongly concerned with equality between men and women, a number of measures have been implemented in order to promote this. In Sweden, the beginning of maternity leave rights for employed women dates back to 1938. Since that time, rights have been extended successively and there is now (since 1989) paid maternity leave for as much as fifteen months. An amount of income compensation has been introduced along the way. At present, the compensation is income related and mounts to 90 percent of pre-tax earnings during the first twelve months of leave. In order to promote gender equality both in the labor market and at home, Sweden became the first country in the world to introduce a system that enables both the father and mother to share the parental leave essentially in any manner that they choose. Working women can take out pregnancy pay for a maximum of fifty days if they are unable to work during the last months of pregnancy. There are also ten ‘daddy days’ of leave for fathers at childbirth. Parents who have an employer, have a right to return to their job after parental leave and may ‘bank’ some of their leave for later us...
