The manhood of the future

Diario Clarín- Suplemento The New York Times. Sábado 26 de Junio de 2010.

While many countries still resist to accept woman´s rights and maternity leaves, more than half of Swedish fathers ask for a paternity leave. Inevitably, this is accompanied by a change in the social roles of men and women.

The paternity leave was first applied in 1995, and it had an inmediate answer on the part of the Swedish citizens. Though fathers were not obliged to stay at home, doing so would mean the loss of many benefits. In 2002, one more month was added to the already existing leave, extending it to two months of lenght. Nowadays, Swedish fathers have 390 days for paternity leaves at disposal. Of course they are paid, and fathers can decide on how to take those days (on months, days or even hours) until their children are 8 years old.

While fathers are asking for leaves of absense, women are becoming more like men; women are reaching higher positions at work, and their incomes are raised every time a man asks for a paternity leave. Such is the case of university graduates who get to an agreement on how they take their leaves. They usually divide them equally so as to avoid any of them having a dominant role or being absent from work too much time.

Though many countries are reluctant to this idea of men taking paternity leaves, some others are studying this model in order to apply it. As European birth rates are increasingly declining, and the shortage of work is growing, this model is being taken into account by many governments. Portugal, Germany and Iceland can be found among the countries who had already implemented this kind of leave.

IZZIE