Sweden is the world’s fairest place for families according to a new report [1]from The Fatherhood Institute in the UK. How do they come to this conclusion, .jpg)
you may ask? In a nutshell, they base it on how equally Swedish men and women divide up work and home duties.
You may have noticed that reports of this sort almost variably place Sweden at the top of the tree whether the issue being examined is health-care, women in the workplace, education, poverty etc.
This is especially true of UN and EU reports and the reason is because these organisations value equality above all else. So does Sweden, and that is why Sweden keeps coming out on top in international comparisons.
But is Sweden really fairest for families? The short answer is no, not even remotely. What is fairest for families is whatever best delivers what families actually want for themselves, and Swedish policy most emphatically does not do this.
In Sweden the vast majority of young mothers work, and therefore the vast majority of children, from the age of one, are in day-care.
Is this actually what Swedes want? Again, the answer is no. A survey conducted by the polling company Sifo in 2006 found that 64 percent of all Swedes believe “the state should make it financially possible to care for children in their home until four years of age”.
Among parents with children up to two years of age 71 percent answered yes, and among the members of Sweden’s biggest trade union LO, 76 percent said yes.
But as Sweden makes achieving equality its priority, it doesn’t really care what ordinary Swedes think or want and therefore it has made it almost impossible financially for families to look after children in their home.
One reason taxes in Sweden are so high, is because the State very heavily subsidises day-care to the tune of thousands of euro per annum.
Sweden is only fair for families if the vast majority of young mothers want to be in the workplace full-time and if the best place for children is day-care from the age of one.