Policy constructions, immigrants’ social rights and gender: The case of Swedish childcare policies

Abstract

This article explores how policy constructions shape policy outcomes for immigrant women and men, focusing on two Swedish childcare policies: (1) parental leave and (2) childcare services. It sheds light on the dynamics between policy constructions and (1) the gender differentiation in immigrants’ social entitlements, (2) the gender differentiation in social entitlements of the Swedish-born population and (3) differences and similarities between the two. Among the major findings is that the universal construction of childcare services and parental insurance promotes parity in immigrant and Swedish-born parents’ utilization. Immigrant families have high enrolment rates in childcare programmes and their rates approach or equal those of non-immigrant families. In the case of parental benefits, over 40 percent of immigrant mothers would be ineligible without the universal construction, and a huge immigrant/ethnic divide in entitlement would exist. Second, a gender differentiation characterizes the claiming of parental benefits, and the differentiation is sharper for immigrant parents. Third, the ethnicity benefit differential is much wider for mothers’ parental leave benefits than for fathers’ benefits. Fourth, despite universal policy constructions, immigrants’ weaker attachment to the labour market affects their social rights, and the effect is greater for immigrant women.

Immigrants and the ‘caring father’: Inequality in access to and utilisation of parental leave in Norway

“…Nordic studies suggest that the parental leave design influences immigrant fathers’ access to leave. The Swedish parental leave combination model of universal flat-rate benefits and work-performance benefits secures immigrant access parity with that of the rest of the population (Duvander and Johansson, 2015; Sainsbury, 2019). In comparison to the Norwegian scheme, the Swedish structure does not require previous employment, and fathers’ rights are not conditional on mothers’ rights.…”

“…Kil et al., 2018; Mussino and Duvander, 2016; Mussino et al., 2016; Sainsbury, 2019; Tervola et al., 2017). Policy constructions appear to have major implications for immigrants, determining the scope of inclusion or exclusion in access to benefits and services (Sainsbury, 2019). Thus, expanding knowledge about how immigrant parents fare under different welfare regimes is crucial.…”

Gender equality and parenting-related leaves in 21 former socialist countries

“…4 Eligibility may be conditioned by strict social security-insurance or employment-related criteria, citizenship, family type, etc. (see, for instance, McKay et al, 2016;Sainsbury, 2019;Dobrotić and Blum, 2019;Wong et al, 2019), influencing the leave take-up rates of different groups of parents within the country. 5 Brighouse and Wright (2008) recognize the need for a more nuanced elaboration of equalitypromoting leaves by distinguishing between a moderate and a radical version of equalitypromoting leaves, while arguing that these versions do not exist in any country.…”

“…Still, in the discussion of findings, the important role of employment-related eligibility criteria in translating policies into take-up rates, particularly for parents with less stable careers (McKay et al, 2016;Dobrotić and Blum, 2019), is taken into account. The same applies to the fact that the leave policy design may have different implications for different family types (e.g., Wong et al, 2019) or immigrant/ethnic groups (e.g., Sainsbury, 2019). 7 Both the LP&R and the MISSOC database have gradually included the EFSCs as they joined the EU (since 2009, the LP&R has also included the Russian Federation).…”

“…The focus here is on the leave policy development patterns and main policy concerns embedded in the leave policy design from a gender perspective. Recent findings legitimately point also to the social (i.e., class, ethnicity, new immigrant status) inequalities inherent to the leave policy design, with eligibility criteria being an important condition for take-up of paid leave by different social groups within a country (e.g., McKay et al, 2016;Sainsbury, 2019;Dobrotić and Blum, 2019). However, 1) the analysis of both the gender and social inequality dimensions of leave policy design goes beyond the scope of any one article; and 2) the historical data on eligibility criteria and how these are translated into take-up rates in the EFSCs are not available and reliable.…”