<p>Under 1994 fanns i Sverige ett vårdnadsbidrag för föräldrar till små barn, som alternativ till kommunal barnomsorg. Uppsatsen är en kvantitativ studie av uttaget av vårdnadsbidraget 1994. En linjär sannolikhetsmodell används för att utröna hur olika faktorer som påverkade uttaget. De huvudsakliga resultaten är att vårdnadsbidragstagarna i regel var gifta eller samboende kvinnor som tjänade mindre än sina män och arbetade inom kommunal sektor.</p><p>Sannolikheten för uttag minskade med ökande inkomst och om föräldrarna hade högskoleutbildning, medan utbildning inom vård eller pedagogik ledde till en ökad sannolikhet för uttag. Sveriges nya borgerliga regering vill återinföra vårdnadsbidraget varför ett möjligt scenario vid ett sådant återinförande diskuteras.</p>

Under 1994 fanns i Sverige ett vårdnadsbidrag för föräldrar till små barn, som alternativ till kommunal barnomsorg. Uppsatsen är en kvantitativ studie av uttaget av vårdnadsbidraget 1994. En linjär sannolikhetsmodell används för att utröna hur olika faktorer som påverkade uttaget. De huvudsakliga resultaten är att vårdnadsbidragstagarna i regel var gifta eller samboende kvinnor som tjänade mindre än sina män och arbetade inom kommunal sektor. Sannolikheten för uttag minskade med ökande inkomst och om föräldrarna hade högskoleutbildning, medan utbildning inom vård eller pedagogik ledde till en ökad sannolikhet för uttag. Sveriges nya borgerliga regering vill återinföra vårdnadsbidraget varför ett möjligt scenario vid ett sådant återinförande diskuteras.

This study focuses on the effects of the cash for care policy (CFC, in Swedish vårdnadsbidrag) on female employment in Sweden. The CFC was introduced in Sweden in 2008. It consists of a flat-rate sum paid by the municipalities to parents of children between age one and three, who decide to provide care for their children and do not use publicly subsidized daycare. The policy has been the object of heated political and social debates. The main object of the reform is increasing parents’ “freedom to choose”, but the policy is also feared to be a “housewife trap” by those opposing the reform. The study provides an overview of the use of CFC during the first years since its introduction, and an estimate of short-term effects of the use of CFC on female employment. Since it is voluntary for the municipalities to adopt the policy, municipalities have been analyzed as in a quasi-experiment, where some have been “treated” with the CFC policy, and some have not. First, female employment trends in similar types of treated and control municipalities were compared. Secondly, linear regressions were used to estimate the effects of the CFC policy on changes in female employment rates after the introduction of the policy, controlling for various characteristics of the municipalities such as: urban/rural areas, shares of highly educated women, shares of low educated women, shares of foreign-born women, total fertility rates. The study shows that, in general, the municipalities that offered the policy had higher female employment rates than the municipalities that did not offer it. Nevertheless, in rural areas the adoption of CFC had negative effects on female employment. On average, in rural areas female employment growth rates relative to years 2007-2012 in municipalities offering the policy were 2.42 percentage points lower than in control municipalities, all else being equal. Negative effects of CFC on female employment in municipalities with high shares of low educated women, high shares of foreign-born women and high fertility rates were not confirmed. The CFC policy has been recently adopted, mostly in urban municipalities and the proportion of parents that used CFC has been relatively low. Long terms effects of CFC on female employment will likely be dependent on whether the policy will be more widely used in the future and where.

<p>This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ‘vårdnadsbidraget’. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model.</p><p>From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate – is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ‘vårdnadsbidraget’?</p><p>The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics. Even though the opponents of the reform are critical to the nuclear family as a ideal, their strife for gender equality contributes to reproduce the heterosexual nuclear family as the family norm.</p>

This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ‘vårdnadsbidraget’. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model. From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate – is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ‘vårdnadsbidraget’? The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics. Even though the opponents of the reform are critical to the nuclear family as a ideal, their strife for gender equality contributes to reproduce the heterosexual nuclear family as the family norm.