爲什麼瑞典男人有那麼長的產假？

ALONG with its Nordic neighbours, Sweden features near the top of most gender-equality rankings. The World Economic Forum rates it as having one of the narrowest gender gaps in the world. But Sweden is not only a good place to be a woman: it also appears to be an idyll for new dads. Close to 90% of Swedish fathers take paternity leave. Last year some 340,000 dads took a total of 12m days' leave, equivalent to about seven weeks each. Women take even more leave days to spend time with their children, but the gap is shrinking. Why do Swedish dads take so much time off work to raise their children?

Forty years ago Sweden became the first country in the world to introduce a gender-neutral paid parental-leave allowance. Benefits comprised 90% of wages for 180 days per child, and parents were free to divvy up the days between them in whatever way they pleased. But the policy was hardly a hit with dads: in the scheme's first year men took only 0.5% of all paid parental leave.

Today they take a quarter of it. One reason is that the scheme has become more generous, with the number of paid leave days for the first child being bumped up from 180 to 480. But it has also been tweaked to encourage a more equal sharing of the allowance. In 1995 the first so-called "daddy month" was introduced. Under this reform, families in which each parent took at least one month of leave received an additional month to add to their total allowance. The policy was expanded in 2002 so that if the mother and father each took at least two months' leave, the family would get two extra months. Some politicians now want to go further, proposing that the current system of shared leave be turned into one of individual entitlements, under which mothers should be allowed to take only half of the family's allowance, with the rest reserved for fathers.

Policies similar to the Swedish "daddy months" have been introduced in other countries. Germany amended its parental leave scheme in 2007 along Swedish lines, and within two years the share of fathers who took paid leave jumped from 3% to over 20%. One of the most powerful arguments in favour of splitting parental leave more equally is that it has positive ripple effects for women. Since Swedish men started to take more responsibility for child rearing, women have seen both their incomes and levels of self-reported happiness increase. Paying dads to change nappies and hang out at playgrounds seems to benefit the whole family.跟它的北歐鄰國們一樣，瑞典在性別平等榜單上名列前茅。世界經濟論壇將它評爲世界上性別差異最小的國家之一。然而瑞典不僅僅是一個適合女人居住的國家，看起來它也是新爸爸們的樂土。幾乎90%的瑞典爸爸們休產假。去年大概34萬父親一共休掉了120萬個假日，相當於每人休假七週。女性甚至休更多假來陪伴孩子，但是男女差距正在縮小。爲什麼瑞典男人從工作中抽出這麼多時間來養育孩子呢？

四十年前，瑞典成爲世界上第一個實施中性帶薪產假津貼的國家。其福利包括每次生產後，父母都享受90%工資的180天產假，並且父母雙方能自由隨心地分配天數。但是這個政策幾乎沒對爸爸們產生任何影響：在體制的第一年，男人們只休了0.5%的帶薪產假。

現在他們休四分之一的帶薪產假。一個原因在於這個方案變得更加慷慨了，給第一個孩子的帶薪產假已經從180天增長到了480天。但是這也是被調整來鼓勵更加平均的薪金分配。1995年，第一個所謂的“爸爸月”誕生了。在這一次改良中，父母雙方分別休至少一個月假的家庭會在總薪金上會有額外一個月的增加。2002年該政策得到擴展，如果父親和母親分別休至少兩個月的假，該家庭就會得到額外兩個月的薪金收入。一些政治家還希望在這上面有所進步，他們提議現存的共享休假系統應該轉變爲一種個人權利的系統，規定母親只被允許拿家庭津貼的一半，剩下的一半要留給父親。

其他國家也實施了跟瑞典的“爸爸月”類似的政策。2007年，德國根據瑞典的方法修改了它的產假計劃，之後兩年內休假的父親的比例從3%增長到超過20%。支持更加平均地分配產假的最有力的論點之一是它對女性有積極的連鎖效應。由於瑞典男性開始在育兒上承擔更多的責任，女性的收入和自我報告幸福水平都上升了。付錢給爸爸們讓他們給孩子換尿布、帶孩子去遊樂場似乎對於整個家庭都有好處。