PAVING THE WAY

To learn more about how Sweden has shifted its system in favour of gender equality, I meet Monica Renstig, 63, economist, journalist and government delegate for gender equality research at the Women’s Business Research Institute in Stockholm.

Renstig has been an evangelist for equal working rights since before I was born; she shows me a newspaper cutting of her wearing glasses and blouses of the Working Girl era, when she was the co-founder of Sweden’s first recruitment agency to headhunt solely female managers. “They said the women weren’t there to recruit…pfft,” she says, shaking her head.

One of her many missions is to disseminate Sweden’s method of getting women back into work, therefore raising their wages, status and financial clout. She has two clear aims: change the system (ie the law), and get the media on your side (“Which is why it is good that you are writing this piece”). “Oh, some people say, ‘Women: you have to be more forthright, you have to be more like men, lean in!’ No!” she says. “It’s not enough if you don’t change the system. Change the law, get the journalists behind you, and the status quo will change. Politicians read the papers.”

Her PowerPoint presentations do make for convincing reading. She shows me slide after slide about how women will benefit from more equality, in the home and in the workplace, if childcare is divvied up between partners and later subsidised by taxpayers. For instance, women being able to work after a baby isn’t going to result in a sudden dearth of newborns. Statistics show that wealthy, high-earning women have more children: “You can only have children if you can afford them.”

I tell Monica I read an article that suggested some Swedish mothers feel stigmatised if they don’t go back to work after having a baby. “All women should work,” agrees Renstig. “They may argue that it’s freedom to stay at home with their children. But it’s not freedom to live off a man’s money. All women should have financial independence. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the country, and it’s good for women.”

It certainly seems to be working for the Swedish parents I speak to. Take Joakim and Theresia Swanholm, who live in a suburban terraced house in Malmö. Their home is open, light and well-designed. He supplies car parts and she is a copywriter. They have two boys aged six and eight who are in their pyjamas watching subtitled American TV when I meet them (this is how the Swedes get so good at English). They are an average Swedish family.

We talk for hours about the difference between the UK and Sweden and it’s lovely to see this enormous sense of pride they possess. They know how forward-thinking their country is and they want to tell visitors about it. Joakim talks passionately about the time he took off to raise his boys, and how “wonderful” it was.

Theresia and her husband are proud of their country’s equality but, she explains, many Swedish women are resistant to any further dividing of the parental leave. “I wanted to take my time off, I’ve worked hard!” she says, then adds softly: “I wanted to stay at home with my children.”

Following their generous maternity leave, most women do go back to the office – 77% of Swedish women are in work, in fact, compared to 67.2% of British women. Although she accepts that there is still a long way to go, she’s grateful for what the push for equality has achieved. “It has made life so much easier for both men and women because we have greater freedom to design our lives,” she explains. “For men, it’s now possible, acceptable and even, to some extent, expected that they spend a substantial amount of time with their children. Likewise, young girls now see how much easier it is for a woman to focus on her career, even if she wants a family as well – that’s meaningful and is ingrained from a young age.”

Is Sweden the equality capital of the world? Meet the stay-at-home 'latte papas'