Sweden's Parliament Talks More Negatively About Fathers, Halting Leave Gains
A new analysis of Swedish parliamentary documents reveals that despite decades of pro-engagement policies, lawmakers' rhetoric about fatherhood has grown increasingly mixed and skeptical since the 1990s. The shift in language coincides with stalled growth in fathers' actual parental leave use, suggesting how political messaging directly shapes family behavior—a dynamic that matters for policymakers aiming to drive social change.
Originaltitel: Male Agency? Analyzing Fatherhood Roles in Swedish Parliamentary Documents, 1993–2021
Abstract Policymakers influence citizens’ behavior through language and through policy. In this study, we build on this distinction and use Large Language Models to study how fathers are talked about, i.e., portrayals of fathers, in parliamentary documents. The case is Sweden, a forerunner in policies encouraging an engaged father. Portrayals of fathers are related to policymaking and to fathers’ use of parental leave. The results show that an active fatherhood role dominates over a passive role in this type of documents, and that an active positive role dominates over an active negative role. However, over time (1993–2021) there is a narrowing of the gap between mentions of active positive and active negative fatherhood roles, which coincides with stalled developments in fathers’ use of parental leave. We conclude that portrayals of fathers are more mixed than expected and theorize about a signaling mechanism through which language surrounding fathers may influence their behavior.