Constructing parenthood in times of crisis

Successful Public Policy in the Nordic Countries

“…The experience of the austerity measures does show how precarious the balance, between the payments being high enough to enable fathers to take leave or being too low for fathers to be able to justify the loss of income for the family, is. Similarly, the austerity episode also revealed very clearly that the bargaining status of the mothers is weaker when it comes to returning to work after birth due to the gender wage gap: when the fathers took less leave the mothers extended their time away from work (Arnalds et al 2019).…”

“…Thus, in most cases mothers use their three non-transferable months as well as the three months parents can divide as they see fit. Consequently, mothers still provide much more care during the first years after childbirth than fathers do and mothers' longer absences from the labour market puts them at a disadvantage vis à vis fathers (Arnalds et al 2019). The Icelandic labour market is still highly gender-segregated and despite the relatively high labour-market participation of mothers, it is still lower than fathers' , though the gap has been closing.…”

“…This is due to lack of places in many municipalities, not least in the capital area, and in Iceland municipalities do not have legal obligations to ensure a place in preschool at a certain age (Eydal and Gı ´slason 2015). Studies have shown that parents cope with this gap in a variety of ways, but when the solutions involve a reduction in participation in the labour market many more mothers than fathers shoulder that (Arnalds et al 2013(Arnalds et al , 2019Farstad 2012Farstad , 2014Ingólfsdóttir and Gı ´slason 2016). This has been recognized as a problem by the political establishment and attempts were made by a coalition left of the centre already in 2012 to extend the paid parental leave to twelve months, but without success.…”

“…The parental leave was hard hit, mainly by a severe lowering of the cap on economic compensation. This came in three steps in 2008 and 2009 (Arnalds et al 2019). When it was at its lowest, 43 per cent of fathers and 18 per cent of mothers had salaried earnings above the ceiling.…”

Fæðingar- og foreldraorlof: Aðdragandi, breytingar og árangur laga sem er ætlað að stuðla að orlofstöku beggja foreldra

“…Samkvaemt rannsókn meðal foreldra sem áttu sitt fyrsta barn árið 2009, nýttu 76% feðra (74 einstaklingar) sem aldrei höfðu búið með móðurinni, ekkert orlof(Lárusdóttir, Eydal & Arnalds vaentanleg). Í rannsókn meðal foreldra barna sem voru faedd 2009 jukust líkur á töku feðra ef báðir foreldrar voru í fullri vinnu og að sama skapi var líklegra að feður taekju ekkert orlof ef hvorugt foreldranna var í fullri vinnu(Arnalds, Duvander, Eydal & Gíslason 2019). Fyrst eftir lagasetninguna árið 2000 var nýtingin mest meðal tekjuhaestu feðranna (þ.e.…”