Institution, policy, power and equality : - A study of institutional reforms in the Swedish parental insurance

Sweden is one of the world's most equal countries when it comes to possibilities and justice between men and women. We also have one of the most generous parental leave where both parents have equal chances to form a strong bond with the child and to grow confident into the parent role. Even though these are the conditions men only take out 30 percent of the parental leave while women take out 70 percent. How come? It is because of this question and statistics that we choose to write this bachelor’s thesis. We wanted to examine how power, institution, norms, gender and class affected this division and what different actors from these areas had to say about it. The consequences for women, both economical and sociological are negative and more disturbing than one can first imagine. Women being home with their children is one of the biggest reasons for women's physical and psychic illness and the traditional roles in a home gets settled during the parental leave, resulting in the women taking the bigger responsibility during the whole childhood. Our conclusion is that reforms need to be done. The changing phase towards an equal responsibility for children is too slow at the moment and history shows us that the actions that have been done when it comes to the parental insurance has shown results. Reserving more months for each parent is the proposal that most actors think is the most effective way of changing the norms and distribution