CHILDCARE INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE NORDIC

COUNTRIES AS A WAY OF ENABLING FEMALE

LABOR MARKET PARTICIPATION
Yvette Lind

This paper provides a legal analysis of how barriers for increased gender equality in the la-
bor market can be mitigated through the inclusion of childcare infrastructure, primarily paid
parental leave, regulation of maternal and paternal leave, and universal childcare. The five
Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland are used as case studies.

Keywords: childcare infrastructure, gender equality, social insurance, labor law, comparative
tax law, Nordic welfare state

JEL Codes: K34, K38, K31

I. INTRODUCTION AND AIM OF THE PAPER

T axes apply equally to men and women in a gender-neutral fashion, at least until
further investigated. However, tax systems and fiscal policies affect men and
women differently when scrutinizing the application and implications of these
rules and policies (McCaffery, 2007; Infanti and Crawford, 2009; Mumford, 2010;
Brooks et al., 2011). A vast legal scholarship illustrates how domestic tax systems
and fiscal policies inherently work in economic gender equality (see Stotsky, 1996;
Gunnarsson, Schratzenstalle, and Spangenberg, 2017; Harding, Perez-Navarro, and Si-
mon, 2020), in addition to being perceived as contributors to persisting differences be-
tween men and women in the labor market. The way that such gender inequality man-
ifests itself is naturally diverse and varies between jurisdictions and states. For instance,
Nordic tax scholars often argue that joint taxation is a key contributor to gender inequality
(see Alesina, Ichino, and Karabarbounis, 2011; Lahey, 2014; Gunnarsson, Burman, and
Wennberg, 2019). The argument is that joint taxation incentivizes a breadwinner model,

Yvette Lind: Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark (yl.law@cbs.dk)

Electronically published November 19, 2021

National Tax Journal, volume 74, number 4, December 2021.

© 2021 National Tax Association. All rights reserved. Published by The University of Chicago Press on
behalf of the National Tax Association. https://doi.org/10.1086/717077
938 Lind

promoting the practice of one spouse assuming the responsibility to financially support
the family while the other spouse, often the woman, remains at home and cares for chil-
dren and household or, alternatively, is only employed part-time as a secondary earner.
Furthermore, societal norms perpetuate the traditional role of women as home-
makers and, consequently, women tend to remain at home to a greater extent. Such
norms and patterns may contribute to women not advancing as quickly or earning
as much as their male equivalents in the workplace. Tax systems and fiscal policies
alone cannot resolve or address barriers to increased female labor market participa-
tion. Instead, there are some basic and publicly funded benefits (henceforth referred
to as basic benefits) that are often discussed among the Nordic countries when ad-
dressing gender equality in the labor market; for example, access to cost-free alter-
natively subsidized childcare, equally shared parental leave, and paid parental leave.
This paper considers these benefits as childcare infrastructure. Just as roads and
power supplies are necessary infrastructure for the physical functioning of society,
paid parental leave and universal childcare are necessary for the social functioning
of society and the maintaining of the labor force.
Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to provide a legal analysis of how
such barriers to increased gender equality in the labor market can be mitigated
through the inclusion of childcare infrastructure. The five Nordic countries of Swe-
den, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland are used as case studies.1 The aim is
fulfilled through an evaluative approach supported by Fraser’s universal caregiver
model (Fraser, 1994). The theory is applied to the legislation and legal doctrine
gathered from the five Nordic countries and subsequently integrated throughout the
study. The reasoning of a universal caregiver model in which society’s “institutional
scaffolding and structural foundation provides for the equal distribution of productive
and reproductive work” (Wagner, 2015, p. 351) is applied as a benchmark when dis-
cussing gender equality through the example of childcare infrastructure as an enabler
of female labor market participation. In such a reconceptualized society, this proposes
that someone with both work and care responsibilities, that is, the worker/carer, is po-
sitioned as the norm. An essential component toward achieving such a society is there-
fore an effective childcare policy that is able to readjust the current paradigm by sup-
porting women’s full-time workforce participation.
This paper initially details the methodology and the terminology that are applied
herein (Section II). The third section provides the reader with an introduction to the
tax and social insurance systems in the Nordic countries through the concrete ex-
amples of Sweden and Denmark. The reader is provided with an understanding
of how the systems are financed in addition to inherent features that are linked to
family taxation. This section of the paper also describes how the introduction of in-
dividual taxation in the Nordic countries has affected the taxation of families and
the extent of female labor market participation. Section IV of the paper describes

1
For additional reading on other jurisdictions, see, e.g., Stewart (2018).
Nordic Childcare Infrastructure 939

and analyzes childcare infrastructure through the examples of paid parental leave
and universal childcare. The legal regulations of these benefits in all five Nordic
countries are presented and analyzed. This analysis provides the motivations for
awarding such basic benefits in addition to how these stand in relation to the bench-
marking provided by Fraser’s universal caregiving model. Adjacent legal areas to
tax law, such as social insurance law and labor law, are included to provide a coher-
ent description and analysis. The inclusion of a childcare infrastructure is logical if
one considers the interlinking between work, tax payments, and access to basic
benefits. The final part of this paper provides some concluding remarks with the
aim of inspiring a continuous academic debate on the subject matter.

II. METHODOLOGY, CLARIFICATIONS, AND DELIMITATIONS

First, the inclusion of several areas of law needs some elaboration. Tax law and
social insurance law in the Nordic countries are naturally interlinked. One could see
them as two things that seem disparate but are actually related; one collects and the
other distributes. In addition, labor law also encompasses rules awarding childcare
infrastructure in this context. For instance, in the Norwegian and Finnish systems,
paid parental leave is located within labor law legislation. Access to childcare in-
frastructure supports working environment conditions and, therefore, it is logical
to have paid leave from work within the labor law legislation and not only social
insurance law. Such reasoning is supported by the findings that the development
of paid parental leave is a result of the influence of Nordic unions and their members
being extensively female (see Skorge and Rasmussen, 2021).
Legal families, classifications that comparative law scholars attempt to use as a
way of providing basic clarifications when studying differing legal systems, also
influence the dispersed regulation of a childcare infrastructure. Stated otherwise,
differing legal systems may comprise similar legal rules, yet these are not always
labeled identically or placed in the same legal or political context and are possibly
also located in various areas of law or legislation (Bell, 2019). The Nordic countries
share strong similarities between their legal systems, and the literature on compar-
ative law methodology often acknowledges a Nordic family of law (see Derlén,
2007; Lind, 2017). The existence of such a Nordic family is beneficial to this study,
and it becomes evident when reviewing included comparative examples from tax,
social insurance, and labor law that there are indeed many similarities between the
countries. At the same time, there are also important differences. The most signif-
icant of these are linked to the extent of policy regulation rather than the existence
of legal regulation. In other words, all studied Nordic countries will have, to a vary-
ing extent, included paid parental leave and universal childcare, but the extent and
regulation of it varies. Some countries have a policy that encourages parents to
share paid parental leave more equally through incentives, while other countries
may have legally divided an equal sharing of the paid parental leave.
When deciding on what legal frameworks to include in the study, the functional
method was employed as it facilitates identification and analysis of legal provisions
940 Lind

(Zweigert and Kötz, 1998; Michaels, 2019). This is not one single method but, instead,
it offers a variety of submethods and adjacent theories (Michaels, 2019). The method is
highly beneficial to use when identifying legal rules with similar functions (within all
of the studied legal systems) or that may have the same function yet under differing
names and locations within the legal system (Zweigert and Kötz, 1998; Michaels,
2019). In this specific study, the functions of childcare infrastructure (paid parental
leave, equally shared parental leave, and universal childcare) are identified within
all five Nordic jurisdictions, and these may be ascertained within differing parts of the
studied legal systems even if they have the same function. For instance, paid parental
leave is found within the labor law legislation in Norway and Finland, while the other
countries have it located in their social insurance codes. The legal rules that match these
functions are described and analyzed in Tables 1 and 2. Emphasis is on description,
references to where these basic benefits are located within the individual legal systems,
and an initial analysis of the overall infrastructure.
Some clarifications and delimitations need to be made in connection with this
study. It focuses on individual income taxation and excludes other types of income
taxation such as consumption taxation, corporate taxation, and capital taxation.
This is a natural delimitation because these tax systems provide labor market par-
ticipation incentives and are cohesive in the Nordic legal system. To clarify, the ba-
sic design of income tax schedules and social security contributions affects the dis-
posable after-tax income and incentives to work. In addition, personal income taxes
encompass all types of personal income regardless of their sources; for example,
income from dependent work and self-employment, profits made by unincorpo-
rated firms, capital incomes (interest and dividend incomes, capital gains), and, in
some countries, also transfer incomes (e.g., pension payments; Gunnarsson, 2020).
Finally, universal cash benefits that are awarded to families are not included in this
paper.
Furthermore, there is a separation between individual income taxation in compar-
ison with joint taxation that is of importance when considering the overall context
of how and why childcare infrastructure is provided. This separation is a result of
the Nordic countries primarily having abandoned the practice of joint taxation in
favor of individual taxation. The focus on individual taxation in descriptions and
discussions should therefore be considered as a logical step and not a personal pref-
erence by the author. The legal literature originating from Nordic tax scholars gen-
erally takes the position that individual taxation leads to improved gender equality
(see Gunnarsson, 1995, 2003; Nousiainen et al., 2001; Gunnarsson, Schratzenstalle, and
Spangenberg, 2017), but it should also be emphasized that the Nordic states often expe-
rienced a need for an increased labor force when legally introducing individual taxation,
and this may therefore have also influenced the regime shift. The motives and designs
for these transitions are elaborated further on in the following section of the paper.
Economic gender equality entails the goal of women having the same opportu-
nities as men, whether it is the same opportunity to work full-time, to advance in
their career, or to attain equal pay. Parts of the included scholarship encompass
 Table 1
The Extent of Paid Parental Leave in the Nordic Countries
Maternal Leave Paternal Leave Parental Leave
Country Paid Leave in Total Paid Leave Reserved for Mother Paid Leave Reserved for Father Paid Leave That Is Flexible
Sweden 480 days Havandeskaps-ledighet Pappadagar Days can be transferred between
240 days 240 days the two parents but with
(Maximum of 390 days) (Minimum of 90 days) 90 days minimum per parent,
meaning 90 days will be for-
feited if the father takes 0 days
Denmark 364 days/12 months Graviditetsorlov/Barselsorlov Fædreorlov A total of 480 days that can be
4 weeks before expected birth and 2 weeks for father (or coparent) shared between parents given
14 weeks after the birth after the birth that minimum requirement of
90 days/parent is respected
Norway 392 days/12 months Mødrekvoten Fedrekvoten 16 weeks
15 weeks 15 weeks
3 weeks of paid leave before
birth 1 15 weeks maternal leave
Finland 158 days 1 5 to Äitiysvapaa/ Isyysvapaa Parents decide freely over days
8 weeks before birth Moderskapsledighet Maximum of 54 days (158 days in total after birth)
5–8 weeks before expected birth
(additional to the 158 days)
Iceland 9 months Faedingarorlof Faedingarorlof/Fedraorlof 3 months
3 months 3 months
Note: Observe that the level of reimbursement that is received varies between countries, in addition to some countries paying 100 percent for part of the leave and a
reduced amount for the remainder of the paid leave.
Source: Sweden: Föräldraledighetslag (1995:584) and Chapter 12 SFS 2010:110 Socialförsäkringsbalken. Denmark: lovbekendtgørelse nr 235 af 12/02/2021
Barselsloven. Norway: Chapter 12 LOV-2005-06-17-62 Lov om arbeidsmiljø, arbeidstid og stillingsvern mv. (arbeidsmiljøloven). Finland: Chapter 4 26.1.2001/
55 Työsopimuslaki. Iceland: 2020 nr. 144 29. desember Lög um fæðingar- og foreldraorlof.
942 Lind

Table 2
Access to and Costs of Universal Childcare in the Nordic Countries
Country Fees for Childcare at Kindergartens and Preschoola
Sweden Calculated on household income and number of children
Minimum level about SEK 1,000/child (about USD 115) per month
and capped at about SEK 1,500/child (about USD 174) per month
(dependent on the municipality)
Denmark Not standardized nor capped. The fees for Danish childcare may therefore
differ slightly between municipalities and are considerably higher
compared with Sweden. In general, the municipality grants about 75%
while the parents pay the residual childcare costs. Low-income earners
can apply for additional financial support from the municipality to
reduce their costs and, in some cases, even have the municipality
covering 100% of the childcare costs
Norway Calculated on household income and number of children and capped
at NOK 3,230 (about USD 370)
Norway applies the principle that no family should pay more than 6%
of their total income to childcare. In addition, low-income families
are eligible to receive 20 hours/week of free childcare
Finland Calculated on household income and number of children
Minimum fee of EUR 27/child per month (about USD 32) and capped
at EUR 288/child per month (about USD 340)
Iceland Childcare is subsidized and normally between ISK 25,000 and 35,000
(about USD 200–280), depending on municipality. The cost is reduced
at the age of two when the child begins to attend kindergarten/
preschool, and after the age of six there are no costs as education is
provided for free
a
These figures are based upon one child, yet as a rule, costs are lowered in ratio with the number of
children, meaning that the costs per child decrease with every child.
Source: Sweden: Prop. 1999/2000:129 Maxtaxa och allmän förskola. Denmark: VEJ nr 9109 af 27/02/
2015 Vejledning om dagtilbud m.v. Norway: 36/1973 Laki lasten päivähoidosta. Finland: 540/2008
Varhaiskasvatuslaki. Iceland: 2007 nr. 99 11. maí Lög um félagslega aðstoð.

empirical studies that have analyzed the causality between described legal mea-
sures and their effects on female labor market participation. However, the reader
should take notice that the author of this paper does not aim to measure or analyze
such causality.
In addition, the legal rules attached to the childcare infrastructures in this paper
are all collected from the Nordic countries. This entails a more descriptive study in
which analyses of the similarities and differences between the studied countries are
addressed. These descriptions and discussions could very well be advanced to a com-
parative analysis between the Nordic countries. Such a study could encompass the
United States, which both taxes families through joint taxation and provides social
Nordic Childcare Infrastructure 943

welfare benefits differently in addition to not having an equally extensive labor mar-
ket regulation.
Finally, this is a legal paper utilizing a legal approach that results in a focus on
traditional identification, description, and analysis of legal rules. Legal doctrine
is included with the purpose of clarifying the application and interpretation of these
legal rules. This legal doctrine may, in some cases, provide an indicative estimation
of whether these legal rules are effective in their ambition to increase gender equal-
ity. The included doctrine should not be considered as exhaustive. There is also a
caveat of traditional legal studies not encompassing empirical or statistical analyses
that can provide causal proof between the motives behind the legislation and fac-
tual efficiency of it once it is applied as a rule.

III. AN INTRODUCTION TO NORDIC TAX AND SOCIAL INSURANCE

SYSTEMS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMILY TAXATION
THROUGH THE SWEDISH AND DANISH EXAMPLE
The Nordic countries share similar characteristics that are commonly associated
with comprehensive social safety nets, public services provided by a largely tax-
funded system, overall high tax burdens, public pension plans, a high percentage
of workers belonging to a labor union, and a partnership between employers, trade
unions, and the government (Lind, 2017; Lind and Gunnarsson, 2021). The Nordic
welfare state model is also renowned for being women-friendly with the promotion
of substantive (also referred to as structural) gender equality in legal provisions and
extensive welfare programs (Nousiainen et al., 2001; Borchorst and Siim, 2002).
Family taxation is commonly interlinked with gender equality and joint tax pro-
visions in family-based income tax systems belonging to the tax provisions with the
most immediate and obvious gender implications concerning both allocative and
distributional outcomes. Among Nordic tax scholars, it is often argued that joint
tax measures create disincentives for both labor market participation and the exten-
sion of the number of hours worked for secondary earners (Gunnarsson and Eriksson,
2017). The Nordic countries generally apply individual taxation rather than joint
taxation as previously explained; Sweden and Finland introducing individual tax-
ation as early as 1971 and 1976, respectively. In this section, the two cases of Swe-
den and Denmark efficiently illustrate how joint taxation versus individual taxation
may affect gender equality in various spheres.
Unlike the other Nordic countries, the Danish tax system has individual taxation
as the main rule yet has elements of joint taxation as a way of providing taxpayers
with a choice in how to divide incomes and tax burden within the relationship.2
Denmark (politically) justifies these remnants of joint taxation as an aim to support
married couples when only one spouse works in addition to preventing tax planning
schemes between the spouses (Nielsen, 1972). The beneficial tax treatment that

2
For further reading on joint taxation in the Nordic states, see Lind and Gunnarsson (2021).
944 Lind

applies to married couples does not apply to partners in common-law marriages or

cohabitation. Sweden, however, does not make such a distinction, as partners will
be subject to the same rules and protection regardless of whether the relationship
has been formalized through marriage.3 Instead, a requirement of cohabitating as
a result of a romantic relationship is applied.
Sweden employs individual taxation that results in partners being taxed and re-
ceiving the most basic benefits on an individual basis. There are some (although
very few) basic benefits that are still calculated and awarded in accordance with
the idea of a family unit, as they are calculated on the household income. For in-
stance, childcare costs and subsidies are based upon the total household income
and not individual income (see Table 2 and discussions in Section IV). In contrast,
some family-based benefits are awarded individually. For instance, the childcare
benefit that is paid out in cash is divided equally between both parents even if they
are no longer in a relationship or cohabitating, given that they have joint custody
over the child/children in question.
Swedish social insurance law comprising rules on the distribution of basic ben-
efits is essential when describing Swedish gender tax policy, as many social basic
benefits are designed with the intention of facilitating and increasing female partic-
ipation in the workforce and labor market. The Swedish Social Insurance Code4 ap-
plies two criteria when granting access to basic benefits:5

1. the payment of fees (Dahmén, 1999) and/or income taxes that can be ac-
counted for (work-based benefits that are of a more general and discretion-
ary nature)6 and
2. Swedish domicile (residence-based benefits that are of a social nature).7

The first criterion grants access to work-based benefits such as sickness allow-
ance, income-based pensions, and occupational injury compensation to those
who have Swedish employment and, as such, contribute with taxes on employment
income in addition to the employer paying corresponding payroll taxes.8 The indi-
vidual is therefore assumed to contribute with taxes (income and payroll) through
full-time employment, while the Swedish state supports the individual with basic
benefits when so needed.9 However, this criterion is considered inadequate from
a gender perspective, as it generally includes men while excluding women when

3
Sambolag (2003:376).
4
SFS 2010:110 Socialförsäkringsbalken.
5
In addition, some basic benefits require the individual to pay a fee; however, these are not dealt with in
this study.
6
Chapter 6 SFS 2010:110 Socialförsäkringsbalken.
7
Chapter 5 SFS 2010:110 Socialförsäkringsbalken.
8
Chapter 6 SFS 2010:110 Socialförsäkringsbalken.
9
For a more detailed description and analysis of the social contract and its application within the Swed-
ish tax system, see Lind (2020).
Nordic Childcare Infrastructure 945

being applied in practice. This would be an outcome of men more often having full-
time employment. This inadequacy has been acknowledged, as the Swedish system
applies the second criterion of Swedish domicile as a safeguard that primarily tar-
gets women.10
Consequently, the second criterion introduces residence-based benefits that safe-
guard part-time working women and women who remain at home. This could also
be considered as an attempt at placing the carer at home on a more equal footing
with the worker or provider of the family in accordance with Fraser’s theory. Award-
ing access to benefits through tax payment alone is to acknowledge the working male
spouse as the norm, as women are more prone to either work part-time and/or to stay
more at home. By awarding access to some residence-based benefits, rather than tax
payments, the norm of the full-time working male is acknowledged and revised to
ensure that part-time working women have access to benefits despite not having
full-time employment. Furthermore, these benefits are arguably inherently family
friendly, as they comprise parental allowance, child benefits, and a guaranteed pen-
sion (ensuring that women will have a pension even if they have not been able to
work full-time or have not worked at all) and are awarded in accordance with resi-
dence rather than economic activity.
There are some significant differences between the Swedish and Danish systems.
First, when compared with the Danish legal system, the Swedish system applies
higher social security contributions, statutorily burdening the employer instead
of the individual taxpayer. This payroll tax currently corresponds to 31.42 percent
of the gross employment income.11 Danish social security contributions, in contrast,
are paid by the employee through an 8 percent labor market contribution fee
(Arbejdsmarkedsbidrag, in short).12 As a result, the Swedish system is considered
more generous; for example, lower childcare costs and the inclusion of more compre-
hensive public pensions (even awarding minimum pensions to individuals who have
not worked/worked part-time as a safeguard for women originally). For instance, the
cost for childcare is not standardized nor capped in Denmark. The fees for Danish
childcare may therefore differ slightly between municipalities and are considerably
higher compared with Sweden. In general, the municipality accounts for about 75 per-
cent, leaving the parents to cover the residual childcare costs. Low-income earners can
apply for additional financial support from the municipality to reduce their cost and, in
some cases, even have the municipality cover the entire childcare cost.
In contrast to the Swedish system, the Danish system is based upon the taxpayer
assuming responsibility for a bulk of basic benefits and alternatively negotiating
such benefits through their employment contract. The level of sick pay, pension

10
It should be mentioned that this safeguard has become a topic of discussions due to the Swedish in-
creased intake of immigrants in the last couple of years. It is now also an essential safeguard for im-
migrants to receive the minimum protection in the Swedish welfare state.
11
Chapter 2, 26§ SFS 2010:110 Socialförsäkringsbalken.
12
Lovbekendtgørelse nr 121 af 07/02/2020.
946 Lind

payments, and additional maternity leave is therefore often dependent on the em-
ployment contract in question rather than social insurance coverage. This leaves
low-income workers, primarily women, more vulnerable. It is possibly a reason
why the Danish system still applies elements of joint taxation, as these elements
arguably act as safeguards for women.

IV. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF CHILDCARE INFRASTRUCTURE

IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES
Parental leave is important for many reasons; for instance, the health of the mother
and the child, the attachment between the child and its parents, and equality be-
tween the parents (Gíslason and Eydal, 2010). There is a general belief within
the Nordic countries that equally shared parental leave will strengthen women’s op-
portunities in the labor market. This is particularly valid when considering the pos-
sibility of achieving and maintaining full-time employment, closing the wage gap,
and facilitating women to more easily be promoted to senior positions.
The Nordic countries have all implemented paid parental leave through their so-
cial insurance systems, yet the design differs between the states. Some countries
apply a principle of gender-neutrality, while others have explicitly designed mea-
sures differently based upon gender.13 Furthermore, all of the Nordic countries have
taken some form of initiative to ensure that both parents have the opportunity to
remain at home and/or to share parental leave more evenly between them. What
all countries have in common is the division between maternal leave, paternal leave,
and flexible paid parental leave. Paid maternal leave is often reserved exclusively for
the mother and cannot be shared between the parents. This leave often covers time
before the expected birth and time immediately after the birth. Paid paternal leave
is often less extensive than paid maternal leave and often regulated in such a manner
that the father cannot transfer it to the mother. The latter is a legal design aimed at
incentivizing fathers to stay at home with their children to a greater extent. Flexible
paid parental leave enables the parents to themselves divide the paid time at home
between themselves.
In this context, it is also worth noting that Sweden attempted, between 2008 and
2017, to offer families a cash bonus that would be transferred through the tax sys-
tem if they were to share the total paid parental leave equally between themselves.
The bonus was remitted as a tax rebate with the annual tax returns and corresponded
to SEK 50–100/day (270 out of 480 parental days being eligible for bonus), result-
ing in a potential bonus totaling SEK 13,500–27,000 (about USD 1,600–3,200).14
13
Gender-neutrality meaning that no separation is made between genders. One example would be the
former Danish widow’s pension that was only awarded to women due to them often outliving their
older husbands. The widow’s pension was abolished when the principle of gender-neutrality was
introduced in the Danish legal system. Instead, a pension awarded to both women and men on equal
terms was introduced.
14
§5 Lag (2008:313) om jämställdhetsbonus.
Nordic Childcare Infrastructure 947

However, due to criticism of the bonus being discriminatory against single mothers
and being highly ineffective (very few couples applied for the bonus), it was abol-
ished in 2017.15 One possible reason for its inefficiency may have been the relatively
low amount being offered. It is possible that, despite the added funds through the bo-
nus, families would still be disadvantaged, as their household income would be re-
duced as a result of the father receiving paid parental leave compensation rather than
earning a full income.
Initiatives such as the Swedish one follow the reasoning of Fraser’s theory as it
attempts to disburse productive and reproductive work more evenly between the
parents. By incentivizing the father to take equally extensive parental leave and
subsequently share the reproductive burden equally, this also allows the mother to
work more extensively. In theory, this should result in a more equal sharing of the
work burden.
Finland is currently reforming their paid parental leave system, and new changes
are expected to take effect in August 2022.16 The reform seeks to equally recognize
a broader spectrum of families than the traditional one (mother, father, and biolog-
ical children) in addition to acknowledging a broader variety of family situations;
for example, parents engaged in various forms of entrepreneurship and self-
employment. More clearly, the explicit goals of the reform are to:

• allocate family leave entitlements and care responsibilities equally between

the parents,
• strengthen nondiscrimination and equality in working life, and
• reduce the gender wage gap.

These motives, expressed by the Finnish government and the ministry responsi-
ble for the reform, accord with the reasoning of Fraser’s universal caregiver model,
as these rules are clearly aimed at facilitating an equal distribution of work in both
the home and the labor market. The Finnish reform aims to achieve equally shared
parental leave while simultaneously establishing a legal framework that provides
flexibility and choice to individual families as some days are subject to their own
choice.
When reviewing the proposed changes from a more technical perspective, the
following are the highlights. Each parent will be awarded a quota of 160 daily al-
lowance days, of which there are 6 daily allowance days per week when calculating
the leave. The parental allowance would correspond to 12.8 paid months/child. In
addition, parents would be allowed to transfer up to 63 daily allowance days of their
individual quota to the other parent. In the final stage of the pregnancy, there would

15
SFS 2016:1295 Lag om upphävande av lagen (2008:313) om jämställdhetsbonus.
16
Information issued by the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is available in English: Fam-
ily Leave Reform — Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, https://stm.fi/en/reform-aims-to-encourage
-both-parents-to-take-family-leave.
948 Lind

be a pregnancy allowance of 40 daily allowance days. As a result, daily allowance

days would amount to more than 14 months, resulting in an increase in paid paren-
tal leave when compared with the existing framework. Moreover, single parents
would have the right to use the parental allowance quotas of both parents, placing
them in an equal position compared with the traditional family model that previously
risked discriminating against single parents. Most importantly, all parents who
have custody of their child would have an equal right to daily allowance regardless
of whether they are biological or adoptive, custodial or noncustodial, and regardless
of the gender of the parent.
Affordable childcare is also a component of the Nordic welfare system (see Ta-
ble 2) and considered a plausible way of strengthening female labor market partici-
pation and a more equal distribution of work inside and outside of the home. In the-
ory, it enables women to participate in the labor market to a greater extent if they are
relieved from some of their responsibilities in the home. This reasoning can also be
found within Fraser’s universal caregiver model.
From Table 2, we can observe that universal childcare is used among the Nordic
countries instead of childcare subsidies. Paid parental leave and universal childcare
are treated as critical infrastructure, similar to education and health care. One reason
for these countries providing universal childcare instead of childcare subsidies could
arguably be based on universal childcare not having the same disincentivizing effects
to increased female labor participation, as is occasionally argued when reviewing
the efficiency of childcare subsidies (see Kitchen and Wardell-Johnson, 2018).

V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Nordic countries have, to a certain extent, managed to grant women access to
the labor market through childcare infrastructure regulated through an interlinking
of tax, social insurance, and labor law provisions. By providing such an infrastruc-
ture, the Nordic countries enable women to join the labor market to a greater extent,
whether it is part time or full time, in addition to aspiring for equally shared respon-
sibilities both inside and outside of the home.
A natural outcome of women being more active in the labor market has been that
men have assumed more responsibility in the home. Fathers on parental leave have,
at least to some extent, become the norm in the Nordic countries. This transition has
been achieved with laws and regulations such as paid parental leave (Table 1), quo-
tas on paid parental leave, and subsidized childcare (Table 2). However, Nordic re-
searchers emphasize that while men appear to assume more responsibility in the
home, these measures reinforce economic gender inequality at the same time, as
employers remain discouraged from hiring women for managerial and more pow-
erful positions — a result of women still assuming greater responsibility at home
compared with their partners, because there is no equal sharing of the responsibil-
ities in the home. This is a pattern that subsequently perpetuates women’s attachment
to female-oriented occupations and employment with convenient work conditions
Nordic Childcare Infrastructure 949

(Gíslason and Eydal, 2010). In a situation such as this, where neither families nor em-
ployers have so far managed to achieve equal sharing of the responsibilities in the
home, the ultimate responsibility may arguably fall on the state through governmen-
tal incentives or mandated equal sharing.
The idea of incentivizing or mandating equally shared parental leave may, in the
long term, be one measure that has the potential to assist female participation in the
labor market and reduce the wage gap between women and men (Deding and Holt,
2010). The Finnish reform has yet to occur, and therefore no conclusions can be
deduced from their new rules on equally shared parental leave. The Swedish exper-
iment of awarding tax bonuses to families who voluntarily shared their parental
leave equally between parents proved a failure and was quickly abolished.
Furthermore, when reviewing parental leave and quotas over a longer period,
there has admittedly been a movement toward leave that is more equally shared be-
tween parents; however, it is far from the case that parents are close to equally shar-
ing leave (Gíslason and Eydal, 2010; Eydal et al., 2015). The fundamental reason is
a debated issue, with positions ranging from the fathers not wanting to do so, to the
fact that various financial reasons make parents think it is best for the mother to take
most of the parental leave, to the mothers not wanting to share equally (Gíslason
and Eydal, 2010).
Nordic scholars who study the utilization of quotas on paternal leave argue that
there is indeed a paradigm shift in some of the Nordic countries (Eydal et al., 2015).
However, this shift is not toward a more equally shared parental leave between par-
ents but instead a movement away from an emphasis on the dual earner/dual carer
model and a reverting back to a more traditional family model approach where the
mother is considered the primary parent. Arguably, this change is commonly pre-
sented under the guise of individual families striving for free choice rather than the
states regulating through quotas. Academic findings such as these indicate that the
Nordic countries are, in fact, developing somewhat different policies among them-
selves, and the intra-Nordic discrepancy in policies seems to be increasing rather
than narrowing. This emphasizes that the Nordic countries are indeed not a homo-
geneous group but instead a group of neighboring countries that may, despite hav-
ing a strong common legal culture, have chosen to resolve gender politics in the
labor market in differing manners.

DISCLOSURES
The author received no funding as this article was written within academic po-
sition at Copenhagen Business School.

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