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En Finlande, la législation sur le congé parental vise à promouvoir l'égalité entre les genres. Le père d'un jeune enfant a droit à des congés spécifiques, réservés aux hommes (congé de paternité, « mois du père » ), ainsi qu'à un congé dont peuvent bénéficier aussi bien les hommes que les femmes (congé parental, congé de garde d'enfant). Si une majorité des pères peut prendre un congé de paternité de quelques semaines à la naissance de l'enfant, la concrétisation des droits à congé qui leur permet de rester à la maison pour s'occuper seuls et pleinement de l'enfant se révèle moins simple et doit être négociée à la fois entre les conjoints et avec l'employeur. Des entretiens menés auprès de pères ayant pris un congé long, il ressort que les négociations avec la conjointe dépendent de la situation des deux parents sur le marché du travail, mais également de leur conception du meilleur intérêt de l'enfant. Quant aux négociations avec l'entreprise, elles mettent à l'épreuve les limites genrées des besoins de la famille : ce sont surtout les pères de la classe moyenne dont le niveau d'études est élevé qui attendent de leur employeur qu'il leur permette de s'occuper pleinement de leur enfant.

Tutkimuksen aiheena on vanhempainvapaan käyttö sukupuolen mukaan. Tulokset perustuvat Stakesin vuosina 2001-2002 toteuttaman perhevapaatutkimuksen kyselyaineistoon, jossa vastaajina oli 3 232 pienten lasten äitiä ja 1 413 isää. Isät saivat ensimmäisen kerran oikeuden perhevapaaseen jo 1970-luvulla, ja kuluneen vuosikymmenen ajan isät ovat olleet vanhempainvapaajärjestelmän kehittämisen keskiössä. Vanhempainvapaata ovat kuitenkin käyttäneet pääasiassa naiset. Vanhempainvapaata koskeva lainsäädäntö ilmentää periaatteessa sukupuolineutraalia vanhemmuuskäsitystä, jossa sekä äidin että isän nähdään pystyvän lapsen hoitoon. Käytännössä äidin asemaa lasten ensisijaisena hoitajana ei kuitenkaan kyseenalaisteta, vaikka isän osallistumista lastenhoitoon pidetäänkin tärkeänä. Vanhempainvapaan jakamista isän ja äidin kesken määrittää paitsi isän, myös äidin asema työelämässä. Jos sekä äiti että isä ovat korkeasti koulutettuja, on todennäköisempää, että molemmat käyttävät vanhempainvapaata. Julkisen sektorin naisvaltaisissa organisaatioissa työskentelevät isät pitävät vanhempainvapaata jonkin verran enemmän kuin muut miehet. Työelämän vaatimusten ja stressaavuuden vuoksi monet pienten lasten isät haluavat pitää taukoa töistään. Kyseessä on vanhempainvapaan pitämiseen merkittävästi vaikuttava asia, josta vanhemmat eivät usein kuitenkaan puhu keskenään. Monet isät kertovat perheen taloustilanteen estävän heitä ottamasta vapaata, mutta valinnat perustuvat pikemminkin olettamuksiin kuin laskelmiin. Taustalla on usein sukupuoleen kohdistuvia asenteita sekä käsitys vanhempien erillisistä vastuista. Vanhempainvapaan jakamisella on seurauksia paitsi asemaan työelämässä, myös palkattomien kotitöiden jakautumiseen. Jos perheessä äiti käyttää koko vanhempainvapaan, vanhemmille muodostuu erilliset kokemusmaailmat ja kotityöt eriytyvät sukupuolen mukaan enemmän kuin sellaisissa perheissä, joissa isä pitää ainakin osan vapaasta. Yksittäisten äitien ja isien valinnat tapahtuvat politiikan suomien mahdollisuuksien puitteissa, mutta niihin vaikuttavat myös aineelliset olosuhteet sekä ideologiset käsitykset. Nämä seikat voivat muuttua, mutta kehitys kohti molempien sukupuolten symmetrisempää vanhemmuutta edellyttää aktiivisia toimenpiteitä monella tasolla. Perhepolitiikassa tarvitaan isien yksilöllisiä oikeuksia vapaaseen. Jotta isän vastuu lastenhoidosta toteutuisi, tarvitaan työnantajien ja työtovereiden tukea. Myös perheiden arjessa on välttämätöntä pohtia sukupuolten välisiä suhteita ja kyseenalaistaa niitä. ; This study explores the gendered actualisation of statutory parental leave rights in Finland. Women's participation in the labour market is high, they work mainly full time and have a high education level. Since the 1960's, welfare state institutions have been developed to support the reconciliation of paid work and family life. Leave rights for fathers were first introduced in the 1970's, and during the past decade, fathercare has been in the focus of leave policy development. However, parental leave has been taken mainly by mothers, the division of childcare and housework in families has remained unequal, and women's position in the labour market is not equal to that of men. In the study, gender is a key concept for understanding parental practices in paid and unpaid work. The gendered actualisation of parental leave possibilities is explored on four levels following R.W.Connell's structural model of gender relations (1987; 2000): cultural conceptions and gender ideology; practical division of labour; individual desires and emotional motivations; and power relations. The empirical analysis is based on survey data with 3232 mothers and 1413 fathers of young children, collected in 2001-2002 as part of the Parental leave study by Stakes. In principle, the parental leave legislation reflects a gender neutral conception of parenthood where both the mother and the father are seen as capable carer for the child. Although fathers' involvement in childcare is widely understood as important, in practice the mother's primacy in childcare is not challenged. Naturalised assumptions of mothercare reflect the principles of difference and hierarchy of the prevailing gender order (Hirdman 1990): fathers are supposed to be different from mothers, and their activity in paid employment is valued more than their activity in childcare. Among parents of young children, gendered parental responsibilities are emphasized in relation to one's own choices, but not expected from the partner. Thus, mothers think breadwinning is a shared responsibility, and fathers think childcare is a shared responsibility. The sharing of parental leave between mothers and fathers is to some extent related to the socio-economic position of each parent. When both the mother and the father have a high education level, they are more likely to share parental leave. Fathers employed in female-dominated public sector organisations take somewhat more often parental leave than other men. However, the gender ideology i.e. attitudes towards fathers' take-up of leave, and conceptions of separate parental responsibilities is quite significant for the actualisation of leave rights in families. The ideologies and practices of sharing parental leave between mothers and fathers are related also to the division of labour in unpaid housework. In families where the mother takes the whole leave period, parents develop separate spheres of experience and housework tasks are more differentiated than in families where at least part of parental leave is taken by the father. In a demanding and stressful working life, many fathers of young children desire a break from work. This is an important source of motivation for parental leave, but it is often not communicated between parents. Although many fathers report family economy as an obstacle for their take-up of leave, their choices are based more on assumptions than calculations.

In Finland, all parents, regardless of gender, are eligible for parental leave and there are no restrictive eligibility criteria. In practice, however, the statutory leave options are not equally available to all parents. Since the 1970s, steps have been taken in redesigning the leave scheme to make it more inclusive. Several reforms have been made to promote equality, mainly between women and men, but also between diverse families, such as adoptive families, multiple-birth families or same-sex parent families. The 'demotherisation' of parental-leave rights has slowly shifted the focus from biological mothers to fathers and non-biological parents. In the most recent reforms, the focus has widened from equality between parents to include equality between children regardless of the form of the family that they are born or adopted into.

This paper examines the justifications for using the Child Home Care Allowance given by Finnish mothers with a one-year-old child, and the factors associated with these justifications. The study is based on a survey with parents, focussing on mothers with existing employment contract and spouse ( n = 530). The main justification for home care of a one-year-old child was that the child is too young for out-of-home day care. Experiencing home care as the best interest of the child did not vary according to socioeconomic background. Normative views of motherhood as well as criticism towards the quality of day care was more likely among mothers with a lower occupational status. The practical difficulties of working life were more pronounced among mothers with irregular working hours. The financial unprofitability of employment as a reason for home care was related to the mother's weaker subjective health, lower socioeconomic status, and higher number of children in the family.

Objective: This article reports on the associations of fathers' leave take-up with parents' care responsibilities when their child is around four years old. Background: In families with small children women continue to do more parental care work than men. Several studies, however, have suggested that fathers who take up parental leave also take more responsibility for childcare. Method: We applied logistic regression analysis to Finnish survey data collected in 2019 from the mothers and fathers of four-year-old children to find out whether father's take-up and length of leave is related to fathers taking equal or more responsibility for different dimensions of parental responsibilities, including hands-on care, interacting with the child, community responsibility and mental labour. Results: Our descriptive analysis showed that in families with two working parents, parents shared some hands-on care tasks more equally if the father had taken more than three weeks of leave. When only the father was in paid employment, his take-up of leave was associated with taking the child to or from daycare. Conclusion: We conclude that while father's individual leave has unfulfilled potential in dismantling gendered parental care responsibilities, its effects might differ across different dimensions of parental responsibilities.

Objective: This study examines the extent to which the experience of parenthood worries among Finnish first-time parents predicts the probability of a second birth, and whether the associations differ according to the parent's gender or the sufficiency of spousal support in parenting.
Background: First-time parents' withdrawal from having a second child has been connected to declining fertility rates in Finland and many other high-income countries; consequently, more understanding is needed about why parents potentially refrain from subsequent childbearing.
Method: We utilize longitudinal survey data collected from Finnish parents (N = 544) in three waves (2016–2020).
Results: The results show that experiencing parenthood worries significantly predicts the probability of a second birth. Specifically, the accumulation of parenthood worries predicted a lower probability of a second birth, and each additional worry decreased the probability significantly more for fathers compared to mothers. Although we found no gender differences regarding the associations between specific parenthood worries and the probability of a second birth, our results showed that fathers who worried about loneliness or having sole responsibility for parenting were less likely to have a second child than fathers with no such worries. In terms of the sufficiency of spousal support in parenting, we found, first, that among parents who received insufficient spousal support, those who worried about their parenting skills adequacy had a lower probability of a second birth than those with no such worries. Second, among parents with sufficient spousal support, worrying about their own ability to cope was associated with decreased probability of a second birth compared to those who did not experience such worry.
Conclusion: Our findings provide new insights into the potential influence of parenthood worries experienced by first-time parents and the role of spousal support in subsequent childbearing.

De nordiske lande anses ofte for at være foregangslande inden for ligestillingsområdet. Det er sandt at kvinder generelt har en stærkere position i de nordiske samfund end i resten af verden. Der er en utvetydig vilje i de fleste – eller måske i alle – områder af samfundet med henblik på at fremme og styrke ligestillingen mellem kvinder og mænd. I de senere år er der sket nogle betydelige forandringer i familierne hvor mændene nu i højere grad tager del i børnepasning, huslige pligter og andre opgaver som tidligere primært var kvindernes område. Af og til stilles der i den offentlige debat spørgsmål om hvorvidt de investeringer vi har foretaget med henblik på at sikre lige muligheder, rettigheder og forpligtelser for kvinder og mænd rent faktisk er gået ud over børnene. Dette drejer sig især om udvidelsen af børnepasning og muligheden for delt forældreorlov. Denne bog behandler nogle af disse spørgsmål ved at give et overblik over den politiske udvikling inden for forældreorlov og børnepasning i Norden. Desuden giver bogen en beskrivelse af forskningen i nordiske børns situation og deres velbefindende set via internationale sammenligninger. Bogen er resultatet af et fælles nordisk projekt koordineret af redaktørerne Guðný Björk Eydal og Ingólfur V. Gíslason. Andre bidragydere er Berit Brandth, Ann-Zofie Duvander, Johanna Lammi-Taskula og Tine Rostgaard.

How to respond to the needs of working parents has become a pressing social policy issue in contemporary Western Europe. This book highlights the politicising of parenthood in the Scandinavian welfare states - focusing on the relationship between parents and the state, and the ongoing renegotiations between the public and the private. Drawing on new empirical research, leading Scandinavian academics provide an up-to-date record and critical synthesis of Nordic work-family reforms since the 1990s. A broad range of policies targeting working parents is examined including: the expansion of childcare services as a social right; parental leave; cash benefits for childcare; and working hours regulations. The book also explores policy discourses, scrutinises outcomes, and highlights the similarities and differences between Nordic countries through analyses of comparative statistical data and national case studies. Set in the context of economic restructuring and the growing influence of neo-liberal ideology, each chapter addresses concerns about the impact of policies on the gender relations of parenthood. Politicising parenthood in Scandinavia is a timely contribution to ongoing policy debates on welfare state models, parenthood and gender equality. It will be of particular interest to students and teachers of welfare studies, family policy and gender studies

The five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are well-known for their extensive welfare system and gender equality which provides both parents with opportunities to earn and care for their children. In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as UK and the US, demonstrate how modern fatherhood is supported in the Nordic setting through family and social policies, and how these contribute to shaping and influencing the images, roles and practices of fathers in a diversity of family settings and variations of fatherhoods. This comprehensive volume will have wide international appeal for those who look to Nordic countries and their success in creating gender equal societies