N ORDIC C OUNTRIES Nordic Countries Juni 2009 Office Stockholm Västmannagatan 4 11124 Stockholm Tel. 004684546592 Fax: 004684546595 email: info@fesnord.se 3- 2009 Swedish Family Policy controversial reform of a success story Tommy Ferrarini, Ann-Zofie Duvander* Since the 1970s Sweden’s dual-earner model of family policy has gradually been strengthened by expansions of public day-care, extended earnings-related parental leave and individualised income taxation of spouses. Sweden has become a central case for comparative gender policy analysts and aspects of these policies have become a point of reference for policy makers in other advanced welfare states. One reason for the large interest in dual-earner policies is their potential consequences for a number of outcomes related to behaviour and well-being of parents as well as children. After the election in 2006 questions have been raised about the future direction of policies. The centre-right coalition government has proposed and launched several reforms with the pronounced purpose to increase individual choice. The separate reforms appear to point in divergent directions, simultaneously introducing new and partly contradictory principles of social care. This paper describes the reforms of Sweden’s family policies and discusses their potential outcomes. Will the dual-earner model persist but in a somewhat new shape? And what are the potential consequences of the new reforms on individual behaviour and well-being? For several decades Sweden’s family policy has been one of the most clear examples of a dual-earner model, where parents have been encouraged to participate in the labour market and to share unpaid care work. 1 This policy orientation has over the past four decades gradually been strengthened through * Tommy Ferrarini, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University. Ann- Zofie Duvander, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University. 1 In the dual-earner model both parents are taxed indivudually; parental leave supports female paid work and male care work; and publicly subsidized childcare is affordable, provided on a full time basis and of high pedagogical quality. expansions of public day-care, extended earnings-related parental leave for both parents and individualized income taxation of spouses. Shared responsibility over children after parental separation has also been promoted by making joint custody norm and enforcing shared economic responsibility through the maintenance system. Swedish family policy legislation has become a point of reference for policy makers in other welfare democracies, as for example with the introduction of the German parental insurance law in 2007. A main reason for the interest among scholars and policy makers in dual-earner policies is their links to a large number of