e instead of taking it all at once. In fact, the law specifically states that no employer may penalize the career of a working parent because he or she used parental rights (Appleqvist).Parents are also entitled to compensation for the occasional care of children. Today parents have a legal right to stay at home and take care of a sick child for as much as ninety days a year per child. Parents with children aged from four to twelve years are entitled to two-days’ leave a year per child for parental participation in day-care or school activities. Furthermore, employed parents with a child under the age of eight have the right to reduce their working time by 25 percent, though this is without income compensation. In addition, Sweden has a comprehensive system of heavily subsidized public child-care, including high-quality day care centers, family day-care, and after-school facilities. In 1987, 69 percent of all children from the ages of one to six years had access to public child-care and today the figure is even higher (Hoem 51-54).Families with children also receive direct public economic support, the most important component of which is the child allowance. Low-income families are entitled to a housing allowance, and there is a system of public child-support advances for lone parents who have difficulties collecting child-support payments from the non-custodial parent.Child rearingSome years ago (in 1976) data was collected from a Swedish sample of mothers with small children. In a study done with Trost (1983), they asked the respondents three questions about how serious it was if a child, aged 5-6 years, took things that were not theirs (pilfering) from home or stores. They were also asked three questions about how important it was that a child in this age group thanked, greeted, and had good table manners. The sex of the child was not specified but was done so in a way as to not overestimate the differences between th...
