The Swedish Model in Practice
7.30 a.m. Drop-off at preschool
Early morning weekdays, the Pipmakaren preschool in Stockholm is a beehive of activity. The daily ritual of dropping off the kids at preschool begins. Most of the children here are dropped off before eight o’clock in the morning by one of their parents. Some children make a fuss. Some need to go to the bathroom one more time, others are just happy, and run to their friends.
Marianne Karlsson leaves her child Lovisa here for the day. After Lovisa was born, Marianne stayed at home with her — with 80 percent of her salary paid by the Swedish state. For each child, parents are allowed no less than 480 days of parental leave, a very long time by international comparison. Marianne and her husband also receive a monthly allowance of SEK 1,050 (about USD 150) per month and child.
All parents have access to preschool, albeit usually after a waiting period of a few months, especially in the bigger cities. And preschool isn’t free; there is a charge. The 1990s saw a state-financed voucher system installed for child care, education and elderly care. As a result, private child care centers sprang up all over the nation — among them Pipmakaren, which in fact is a private, for-profit business. Parents here don’t seem to notice or care that much, however, as the cost to them is the same: State subsidies ensure the cost is limited to 3 percent of parents’ income (or at most SEK 1,250, USD 180, per month), regardless of whether preschool is public or private.
9.00 a.m. Children first
Marianne arrives at work. If she happens to be a little later than her colleagues, no one bats an eyebrow. So entrenched is the system, that dropping off children at preschool trumps any other requirement. “Sorry, I can’t make it to that early morning meeting, I have to drop off the kids,” is an excuse that will defer any meeting at any workplace. Marianne would simply be expected to make up for lost time by getting in early some other day, or work extra from home.
When returning from parental leave, parents have a legal right to regain their previous employment, or similar work. There is, in other words, no risk of returning to work only to find that you have been demoted — or worse, lost your job.
Men also stay at home, but usually when children are at least six months old and normally for a shorter time. Women use 79 percent of the parental leave days. Men increase their share, but — according to critics, who would like dads and moms to share evenly — it increases very slowly. At the present rate, parental leave will not be evenly split until the year 2061. Critics also remark that men’s parental leave seems to rise whenever there is a major soccer tournament on TV.
12.00 p.m. Group lunch
Marianne has lunch with a colleague near her office. Lunch is also included in the subsidized preschool cost, so — under more or less organized forms — the children at Pipmakaren sit down together with their teachers and eat. After which it is nap time in the preschool world.
Jill Fransson, head of educational development at Pipmakaren, explains how her preschool is organized: “We have about 10–20 children in each group, depending on the children’s ages, and four or five rooms for each group of children,” she says. “There are two or three preschool teachers for each group. Each teacher has a four-year college education.”
3.00 p.m. Pick-up from preschool
From three o’clock onwards, children are being picked up by their parents. Today, a small boy wants to bring that great muddy tree branch that he found in the yard back home with him, and cries when his dad won’t let him. Others are tired and want to go home.
Usually one parent drops a child off, and the other picks it up. Parents try to make work days overlap, so that the children won’t have to spend full days at preschool.
8.00 p.m. Sleep o’clock
At eight in the evening, most children in Sweden are sound asleep. (In the best of worlds, anyway.)
Marianne has time to reflect upon the Swedish preschool and parental leave system. “I’m really satisfied with the system,” she says. “I just think it’s great that you can combine children with a career and don’t have to choose,” she says.
In fact, preschools may be called one of the cornerstones of the Swedish Model. (See the right column for the origin of the term.) The Swedish system means women enter the workforce and contribute to national wealth — eight out of every ten women work. That is a larger number than in almost any other country.
Besides increasing equality and the workforce, the Swedish system has had an important side effect. In many countries, such as Spain, Italy and Japan, populations are expected to decline. But Sweden, which both attracts immigrants and enjoys an increase in the fertility rate, has seen its population grow slightly over the last decade.
Of course, as a consequence of such an extensive system of public services that Sweden offers its inhabitants, Swedish taxes are high. But people still seem content with what they get, because there is in fact little debate about the overall tax level. Thus, so far, and in that sense, the Swedish Model stands strong.
Source: My favorite website www.Sweden.se
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