When couples separate, gender equality increases in terms of taking out parental leave days, a new study shows.
It's a quiet revolution in the field of gender equality, says Helen Eriksson, demographer at Stockholm University.
The study is based on register data before and after separation among opposite-sex couples in Sweden between 1994 and 2016. After separation, fathers take out a larger proportion of parental leave days than they did before separation.
The background is the significant increase in shared living arrangements in Sweden.
Currently, around half of the children whose parents separate live in shared living arrangements, says Helen Eriksson.
In the centuries-long history of separations, it was previously unthinkable that children would live with their fathers, so it's a revolution that has now taken place, Eriksson believes.
It's a quiet revolution in the field of gender equality.
Previously, a separation led to children living with their mothers, regardless of the situation with the father. That's no longer the case in Sweden – but still is in many other countries.
In a shared household, mothers often take care of project management at home, research shows.
Dividing it into "mom's week" and "dad's week" allows you to break the roles you tend to fall into as an opposite-sex couple, says Eriksson.
