Two Irish academics have dismissed criticism of Sweden’s daycare system aired at an Iona Institute conference last month.
 
Writing in today’s Irish Times, UCC law lecturer Ursula Kilkelly and education lecturer Dympna Devine said that the Nordic model was “among the best internationally on all the indicators of children’s wellbeing”.
 
They were responding to comments made in the Irish Times by Breda O’Brien which summarized the proceedings of The Iona Institute conference about women, home and work.
Referring to remarks made by Swedish social expert Jonas Himmelstrand, she said that the system had led to “the virtual eradication of the choice to be a full-time carer for your own children”.
 
And she said that Dr Catherine Hakim, a sociologist with the London School of Economics, had “demolished the idea that Sweden has achieved gender equality”.
 
Ms O’Brien said: “The glass ceiling, she said, is harder to smash in Sweden than anyone imagines. Sweden has a highly segregated labour market, with women clustered in lower-paid public service jobs, while men are much more likely to be in higher-paid private sector work. The gender pay gap still remains”.
 
However, Drs Kilkelly and Devine defended the system, writing that Sweden’s welfare policies “emphasise the civic role of the state in facilitating quality of life and wellbeing among all its citizens”.
 
They said: “Sweden has led the way internationally in investing in quality, accessible and affordable childcare. Combining this with generous parental leave – which replaced maternity leave as early as 1974 – the Swedish model facilitates women’s participation in the workforce as much as it aims to improve men’s involvement in child-rearing (known as the earner-carer model).”
 
It was no coincidence, they continued, that societies such as Sweden have among the highest rates of women active in politics – a necessary precursor, it seems, for the development of child- and family-friendly welfare services.
 
However, the article did not respond to a range of criticisms made by Mr Himmelstrand at the conference.
 
Mr Himmelstrand said that educational standards were slipping in Sweden, and rates of psychological distress and psychosomatic illnesses among teens had gone up dramatically. Increasingly, disruptive behaviour in schools was becoming a problem.
 
There were also serious concerns about slipping standards in daycare in Sweden, he said.
 
The authors did acknowledge that the system hadn’t produced full gender equality, but said that did not undermine the Swedish model.
 
“Rather, it highlights the entrenched nature of gender stereotypes and that there should be no complacency on how gender equalities can be achieved,” they said.
 
They also acknowledged that the system had some “unintended consequences”. They said that the length of parental leave worked against women’s advancement in the workforce since employers saw “the hiring or promotion of women candidates as a greater risk, and women face even bigger hurdles returning to the workforce after a lengthy period on leave”.
 
This was undoubtedly related to the fact that despite efforts to make parental leave an equal entitlement of both parents, women still take the majority of parental leave in Sweden.
 
“Plans to further enhance opportunities for mothers’ participation in the workforce and fathers’ role in child-rearing continue to be developed,” they wrote.