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I think you're confusing income and standard of living.

The Swedish have a very high standard of living, from everything I've seen when I've visited it's comparable to the USA.

It's described by that famous pro-Swedish anti-American body the CIA as "enviable" in their world factbook and the UN Standard of living survey places them around 5th (the USA is around 10th - both vary year by year but not the order they come in).

Even were your suggestion true, it's as much about the legal protection you have in Sweden to go back to your job. Try 18 months out of work in the USA and I'm guessing that you might find getting back into the work place (particularly in IT where your skills are now rusty and dated) harder than you might think.

It's true, when I said "standard of living", I simply meant "consumption". "Standard of living" is a fairly nebulous and poorly defined concept. I should have been more specific about what I meant. Thanks for pointing that out. I've edited my post to reflect this.

As someone who has a lot of Swedish friends and has spent a lot of time there, I can't imagine that this could possibly be true.

First of all, every Swedish person I know seems to already have a higher standard of living than the American with an equivalent job in almost all aspects. Add to this the fact that the entirety of Sweden itself is maintained to a higher standard; consistently pure/clean water, well-maintained roads, clean parks, well-maintained public services, etc. I wonder how well the textbook definition of "standard of living" corresponds with real life. I think that einarvollset's point about actually having to spend time in Sweden to understand the quality of life is valid here.

Also, you're missing much of the point of the reasons that Swedish men choose not to initially take the leave. Your claim assumes that it's all economic, whereas the article cites that it is more likely a cultural aspect related to traditional thoughts about masculinity that discouraged them to take the leave. It's yet to be seen, but I'm pretty confident that if you gradually take away the bonus after 25 years, the numbers are likely to remain the same.

Your claim assumes that it's all economic,...

No, all my claim really assumes is that people have a better idea about what is good for them than I (or some enlightened bureaucrat) do.

Suppose men do prefer working because they enjoy feeling masculine, or that women prefer maternity leave because they enjoy feeling feminine. I generally accept people's desires as they are, rather than treating them as defective when they prefer things different from me and penalizing them if they don't make choices that conform to my desires.

I generally accept people's desires as they are

So does Sweden; they are drawing the line at a slightly different point than yourself. I'm assuming that you believe that society's needs trump the rights of individuals at some point, otherwise you wouldn't believe in society at all. Personally, I don't see a problem with encouraging fathers to spend more time with their children; it's likely those children will grow to be better adjusted as a result, and the overall impact on society (including economic factors such as productivity) will be worth it in the long run. To give a similar example: I think that it has been detrimental to the US that parents aren't required to immunize their children; it's obvious that if it continues it will be an overall detriment to the health of American children despite the parents' "desires."

I think that framing the issue as "enlightened bureaucrats considering others defective" is sensationalist and incorrect; The bureaucracy reflects the society, and Sweden is known for their investment and research on gender issues with the aim of resolving societal problems; this policy wasn't some random bureaucratic afterthought.

The bureaucracy reflects the society...

Apparently not. Before the bureaucracy engaged in coercion, women took 15x more parental leave than men (according to the article).

I'm also curious why you feel that being cared for by the father rather than the mother will cause the children to be better adjusted. Are women so much worse as parents than men?

Your example of immunization is a separate issue - not being immunized creates a harmful externality. Having an unequal distribution of parental leave does not.

Apparently not. Before the bureaucracy engaged in coercion

The democratically elected bureaucracy did what they were elected to do. It's not coercion. It reflects the society because society felt that something needed to be changed, and did the research to come to a conclusion on what to do.

Are women so much worse as parents than men?

The policy encourages fathers to share their leave with the mothers. I believe that a children being cared for by both parents will be better adjusted.

not being immunized creates a harmful externality

Again, we're drawing the line in a slightly different place. The lack of a benefit to society - especially those we once had and have since taken for granted - can also be viewed as a "harmful externality."

The policy encourages fathers to share their leave...

The way the policy was originally structured, every couple was forced to pay for a pool of 180 days of leave, to be split between both parents as they saw fit. Every day the father spent with the child is a day the mother didn't. Under this policy, women spent 15x more days with the child than the father did.

When people made choices the bureaucrats didn't like, they changed the policy - now the father is forced to pay for 60 days of leave which the mother is not allowed to use. Further, if the days are split unequally between parents, the couple is financially penalized relative to couples who split their days equally. Even with all these restrictions and penalties, less than 25% of parental leave is paternity leave.

But I'm sure Swedes are mostly bad parents and make poor decisions for their children. Luckily they make better decisions in the voting booth than they do at home.

> The fact that most Americans choose not to do this suggests that paternity leave is not as blissful as the author suggests

There are a whole slew of reasons why people might choose not to do it. Same thing with vacations, which is a simpler subject: Americans, who earn more, could, in theory, give away some of those earnings to have longer vacations. In practice, very, very few do. Quite possibly due to some herd effects. No one wants to be the only one gone for that long, just like no one wants to always be the first one out the door.

In any case: "it's complicated", and my bet is that we'll see the same old rehashed discussions here.

There's actually one major additional factor here: health insurance. I actually had a lot of money saved up with I had my first kid, enough liquid to pay the rent for four years.

I could probably have gotten private health insurance. However, it's very expensive once you no longer get it through a large institution with bargaining power, and I know many people who were denied due to existing health problems.

Plus, if your baby has health problems, you're in a very risky situation if you're an individual buyer.

Your original point still stands - it's essentially the same equation, but I think that health insurance changes the values of some of the variables. The pediatrician, rather than the rent/mortgage, was what kept me pinned to a job I actually kind of hated.

I could probably have gotten private health insurance. However, it's very expensive once you no longer get it through a large institution with bargaining power,...

It's only 2% more expensive for you than for your former employer (for 18 months).

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.HTML

not bad... though that's the total cost, not the amount you pay, right? It's a big bill, almost the equivalent of rent. But if this is the case, then yeah, it's just money, so the equation doesn't change, just the parameters.

I have a buddy who was denied health insurance repeatedly until he got hired, so there's definitely a subgroup that has no choice but to keep the corporate job. I suppose you could also just buy insurance for the baby rather than get a family plan if you're denied but the child is healthy, though I've never heard of this.

It's not quite as simple as glibly saying that Americans can just lower their standards of living and walk away from stable employment to take paternity leave.

Also, people don't just make choices out of the ether - people's range of choices are influenced by the policy environment. It holds in Sweden too - Swedes didn't make the choice to stay at home until they were given the choice, at which point they did.

At any rate, even if Americans are violently opposed to taking parental leave, surely a non-zero number of men would take it - what's the harm in guaranteeing that men have more chance to bond with their children?

You are confusing marginal cost and total cost.

Swedish policy reduces the marginal cost of parental leave to the consumer - they are forced to pay for it whether they want it or not, so the marginal cost of leave is $0.0. This implies Swedes find paternity leave to be worth at least $0.01, and so paternity leave has a positive marginal cost/benefit ratio. That does not mean it has a positive cost/benefit ratio.

I'm sure Americans also value paternity leave at something higher than $0.01. However, most Americans seem to feel that 18 months of paternity leave is not worth 18 months of salary.

The harm in forcing Americans to pay for it (regardless of whether they want it) is that they find the money more valuable. Forcing people to trade something of higher value for something of lesser value is harmful. I'd similarly be harmed if you forced me to trade my Thinkpad for a netbook or my Nexus 1 for an iPhone.

Eh, the cost is that you only get a maximum of 80% of your salary. It is also capped.

In which case, Swedes find it at least as valuable as 20% of their salary.

The relevant question: do they consider paternity leave to be worth more than 100% of their salary? If not, this policy is harmful.

That's only a fair question if your basic needs (food and shelter) are met with 0% of your salary. Otherwise, there is not really a choice.

Thanks to my American salary and Swedish consumption level, my basic needs can be met for many months even if my salary drops to $0. (Not that I actually want paternity leave - it sounds boring.)

Exactly what do you mean by "Swedish consumption level"? Do you think we have 14" TV's and live on ramen here?

Americans all know Swedes primarily subsist on 99 cent soft serve ice cream cones.

I'll post income figures again: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distributio...

I spend money like a person living on the blue line. I earn money like a person living on the red line.

Or, to make another comparison, I imagine people in Sweden consume similarly to people in Maine or Montana (two of the poorer US states).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S1C7-ttdD0I/AAAAAAAAMe...

(Note that those numbers are PPP adjusted.)

So, I'll assume you're above the crossover point. In Sweden, we tend to think that everybody should be able to be home with their kids, not just the ones with enough income to save up..

The people at the very bottom actually have more time to spend with their kids. 80% of our poor (roughly our bottom 15%) are not in the labor force, for example.

In Norway, which has a similar arrangement, you can choose between

1) 46 weeks with 100% pay

or

2) 56 weeks with 80% pay

This is capped at ~ $70 K, but in practice many employers pay people on leave their normal salary (or 80% if you choose the longer leave period).

I mean, fine, but this is the case with just about any form of social program. I'm not in danger of needing food stamps, so logic dictates I'd rather have the $20 a year or so I contribute to that program. I don't like bombs, but about 5-10% of my income goes to pay for them.

You're forced to pay for all kinds of stuff. Might as well get some social value out of it (like more cohesive families)

In basically all cases I can think of, forcing people to buy private goods (rivalrous and excludible) is harmful to the people who would not otherwise choose to purchase those goods.

Your example of bombs/military spending doesn't fall into that category, since defense is neither rivalrous nor excludible. My enjoyment of Iraqi deaths does not hinder your enjoyment of same, and the military has no way of preventing me from enjoying Iraqi deaths if I don't pay my military bill. Thus everyone has an incentive to freeload and a free market will not allocate enough resources to killing Iraqis.

Your first sentence requires an 'if you happen to be at least middle class' at the end.

Your linked blog assumes that money spent on healthcare in Sweden and the US offer the same outcomes. This is plainly not the case - the swedish government spends dramatically less than individuals/companies do in the US to provide the same level of care. If, for example, the author subtracted healthcare benefits from US workers, and subtracted them from swedish workers as well, sweden would compare substantially better. One might find similar issues with respect to university spending.

Do you have evidence that Sweden provides the same level of care?

Note that comparing health outcomes is nowhere near convincing. Lots of factors (ethnicity, lifestyle, genetics) affect health outcomes far more than health care quality. The health care gap between Asian and African Americans is 13 years, for instance.

I will certainly admit to having no stats - although your blog post, a more informed source than myself, states that poor americans will experience significantly worse care than in sweden. My other experience is anecdotal - I've known a fair number of swedes, and they've all been satisfied with their healthcare, while people in the US have serious issues with being underinsured and having legitimate claims denied on technicalities.

Finally, there's the simple fact that the system in the US obviously encourages high prices. In the insurance-based model, there's little disincentive to performing as much work, necessary or not, as possible.

Speaking as a father, sitting home with my child for a year and half would probably have driven the whole family crazy.

For me the ideal would be part time. I'd love to spend more time with my daughter (15 months old) but I'm not cut out for 7 days a week childcare.

In Sweden, the employer can not deny a request for part time work (75%) if the child is 8 years or younger.

You've only compensated for the loss of income for a total of 480 days, though. That'll let one parent work 75% for about five years, while earning about 95% of their full time salary.

First of all only you're only fully compensated 360 of those 480 days, for the other 120 days you only get the minimum level of compensation. Secondly it depends on what their full time salary is. There is a hard upper limit on how much you can get compensated, and most people with good jobs are quite a bit over that limit. So someone with a higher paying job might only get 40-50% of his salary.

The ceiling is about 58kUSD per year.

To what extent does the government check up on how you are spending your paternity leave time?

They basically don't. But if they do discover that you weren't actively looking after your child, then you will be made to pay back the money and possibly face fraud charges.

My husband has been taking care of our baby full-time and it's been great. Why do you think your situation would be different?

You have clearly not been to Sweden.

Would you care to elaborate?

Sure; US effective tax levels brings relative tax rates up much higher than you would expect. That coupled with things like free university education, cheap childcare, state pensions, etc means that I'm highly dubious that all the avg American would have to do is to not get paid for 18 months and they'd be in the same boat. Face it; 18 months leave is a huge perk (snarky comments about going crazy not withstanding).

Furthermore, why the he'll should only the rich get to spend time with their kids?

The costs of the assorted govt benefits is included in the figures I cited. The figures take Swedish income proportions, but scales them upward proportionally to GDP.

Look at this though: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/YourRealTa...

I thinks he refers to the fact that the above post by yummyfajitas says that Americans have a higher standard of living than Swedes.

While they may earn more, they also benefit from much much higher social security (for instance family allowances). Also I don't think the gap between Americans and Swedes is such that just by saving a couple of years you can match the paid leave. You must also consider various expanses that Americans have but not Swedes : a personal pension plan (or at least, a more consequent one), tuition fees for the older child, or saving for that of the child just born.

Finally the claim that people don't stop working to take care of their children is a proof it isn't enjoyable is laudable because it doesn't factor in psychological and sociological parameters.

tl;dr Swedes don't have a lower standard of living than Americans. Maybe the reverse is even true.

Earning 55% more, with no health care, no pre-school child care, and without whatever other benefits are afforded the Swedes, is at best a wash.