The (Un)limited Individual in Swedish Family Politics : An in-depth analysis of an extreme-case in making us less dependent on our families

Abstract: In light of new social risks, such as the decline in fertility rates in large parts of the industrialised world, family policies – for example parental insurance and public childcare – appear to put increasing focus on the individual’s ability to combine labour market employment with family life. This means that individuals become less dependent on their families, conceptualised as an individualisation of policy. Some argue, however, that family policy trends are more ambiguous than usually framed. The aim of this essay is to contribute to research on family policy by examining whether traits of familising policy – policies which increases one’s dependence on one’s family – are found even within countries usually described as fully individualised. This is to be achieved by an in-depth study of the current Swedish policy trajectory, which is often portrayed as a leading example of the individualising trend.  By performing a qualitative content analysis on a Swedish government inquiry from 2017 about the parental insurance model, familising and individualising policy aspects are searched for. The main finding of the essay is that while the individualising aspects of Swedish family policy exceed the familising aspects, there remains some policy traits with familising functions. This is mainly in relation to the degree to which policy is prepared to intervene in gender-unequal behaviour, affecting women’s real possibility of combining work and family. The clearest example is that the parental insurance model still targets couples as a unit: the larger part of the parental leave days are proposed to be available for parents who live together to divide between them as they like.