Research project Caring parents in a gendered labour market

Sweden has a long tradition of political engagement for gender equality but marked gender inequalities in work and care still exist. This has implications for many aspects of men’s and women’s lives, not least in the labour market. This project focuses on a particularly understudied aspect of gendered work division: Leave to care for sick children (CSC).

CSC is an important part of the lives of parents and analytically interesting also because it reflects gender equality in parents’ division of work and care more generally. CSC is likely to affect workplace organisation and therefore the employee’s wage. It is reasonable to believe that these implications vary with socioeconomic position and working conditions but few studies has yet analysed if and how such variation occurs.

Using rich register and survey data and statistical methods for longitudinal analysis, this project gives insights into the need and opportunity to use Sweden’s generous CSC policy, and wage effects of this policy use, in several groups of parents. Mothers and fathers, parents in different socioeconomic positions and parents in intact couples, separated/divorced and re-partnered parents are compared.

Analyses of CSC provide a unique opportunity to disentangle some of the major theoretical explanations of the gendered division of care. Are parents dividing care between them according to what is economically rational given gendered labour market opportunities or are they doing gender through work and care?