Sweden's gender equality push hits a wall in welfare office calls
Swedish welfare officials rarely discuss equal parental leave sharing with parents—despite the state's explicit mandate to promote gender equality. Researchers analyzing 1,300+ interactions found officials cite regulations instead of values, suggesting that feminist policy goals often fail at the crucial moment when citizens encounter government.
Originaltitel: The practical realization of the feminist welfare state: Equal sharing and gender equality in institutional interaction about parental leave in Sweden
<p>Talk about gender equality in relation to parental leave is pervasive in Sweden. The state encourages families to share parental leave and has recurrently tasked the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) to promote gender equality. As theories and applications of street-level bureaucracy have emphasized, how policy is practically realized in social interaction with clients is an important question, specifically whether gender equality discourse also permeates such encounters. We use conversation analysis to examine how equal sharing of parental leave is raised in interaction between parents and practitioners at the SSIA. The data consist of 300 telephone calls, 378 email exchanges, and 642 Facebook exchanges. Our analysis indicates that the talk of equal sharing is not as omnipresent as previous research might suggest. When parents orient to equal sharing they tend to describe parental responsibilities, while practitioners connect equality to regulations that in themselves work to promote equal sharing. Equal sharing is also a resource for negotiating the citizen-state relationship, as parents complain about state interference while practitioners in response must balance provision of personalized support with the state-imperative to promote sharing. The study highlights the complex work of practitioners in the “feminist welfare state” and nuances notions of equality promotion.</p>