Published 8 February 2023 at 10.18
Domestic. Parental leave is “even more unequal” than the statistics show, according to a new report from TCO.
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When you also include unpaid leave, women are on average away from work for more than a year during a child's first two years. That is roughly nine months more than the men, according to the report.
– I am deeply concerned and surprised that we have not come further. We know that unequal parental leave affects women's career and income negatively, says TCO's chair Therese Svanström in a press release.
She is supported by the gender researcher Anneli Häyrén at Uppsala University.
– The most worryingly, it is actually a declining trend. This means that fathers do not take the time they actually can and are allowed to take, says Anneli Häyrén to SVT.
Counting in paid parental leave, women are away from work for 8.6 months during a child's first two years . That figure rises to 12.7 months when the unpaid leave is included. For men, the corresponding figures are 2.4 and 3.4 months. Women are therefore absent from work without compensation for longer than men are on parental leave both with and without compensation.
The difference between women's and men's share of unpaid parental leave has also increased in the last six years, with women's share of unpaid leave increasing more than men's. This indicates that the gap may become larger if the trend continues, according to TCO's report.