Lessons from a Feminist Paradise on Equal Pay Day

Article here. Excerpt:

'Generous parental leave policies and readily available part-time options have unintended consequences: instead of strengthening women’s attachment to the workplace, they appear to weaken it. In addition to a 16-month leave, a Swedish parent has the right to work six hours a day (for a reduced salary) until his or her child is eight years old. Mothers are far more likely than fathers to take advantage of this law. But extended leaves and part-time employment are known to be harmful to careers — for both genders. And with women a second factor comes into play: most seem to enjoy the flex-time arrangement (once known as the “mommy track”) and never find their way back to full-time or high-level employment. In sum: generous family-friendly policies do keep more women in the labor market, but they also tend to diminish their careers.
...
Swedish economists Magnus Henrekson and Mikael Stenkula addressed the following question in their 2009 study: why are there so few female top executives in the European egalitarian welfare states? Their answer: “Broad-based welfare-state policies impede women’s representation in elite competitive positions.”

It is tempting to declare the Swedish policies regressive and hail the American system as superior. But that would be shortsighted. The Swedes can certainly take a lesson from the United States and look for ways to clear a path for their high-octane female careerists. But most women are not committed careerists. When the Pew Research Center recently asked American parents to identify their "ideal" life arrangement, 47 percent of mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and 20 percent said they would prefer not to work at all. Fathers answered differently: 75 percent preferred full-time work. Some version of the Swedish system might work well for a majority of American parents, but the United States is unlikely to fully embrace the Swedish model. Still, we can learn from their experience.'