For Paternity Leave, Sweden Asks if Two Months Is Enough
Jim Butcher’s decision to join Sweden’s army of “latte dads” last year didn’t win him any popularity contests with family and friends back home in the U.K.
“When I told my friends in England, they spat up their tea,” said the 35-year-old head of communications for digital-music company Spotify Ltd., which is based in Stockholm.
“They thought my out-of-office reply—that I was gone for six months—was a joke.” His father, a self-employed bricklayer, was concerned his son was jeopardizing his career.
But Mr. Butcher had a serious agenda for his half-year hiatus: Spending uninterrupted time with his newborn daughter.
Sweden’s paternity-leave benefits, enjoyed by citizens and foreign residents alike, are the most generous in the world—and a debate is under way nationwide over whether to extend them even further. Sweden should require men to take a minimum of three months’ leave, instead of the current two months, some politicians argue.
Fathers currently can take off work for as long as 240 days with a government-backed paycheck. Even if a father decides to take a more modest leave than allowed, he must take at least two months before the child is 8 years old to receive the government benefits.