At the start of this month, Sweden launched a new law allowing parents to transfer some of their paid parental leave allocation over to the grandparents during a child’s first year. A couple will be able to re-allocate 45 days of their joint 480-day allowance (240 days each), while a single mum or dad can pass on 90 days. The move comes 50 years after the Scandinavian nation became the first ever country to introduce paid parental leave that could be split between both parents.
The UK would do well to take note. Our childcare system is among the most expensive in the developed world; prices here are now double the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average. For some mothers, it’s barely worth returning to work when their childcare costs might outstrip their salary.
Last year, a survey from the charity Pregnant Then Screwed found that 76% of mums who pay for childcare believed that it no longer made sense for them to work. It’s situations like this that help keep the gender pay gap alive and well. And if your career is a big part of your identity, having no choice but to put it aside must be incredibly frustrating and isolating.
Against this backdrop, it’s hardly a surprise that many parents are leaning on their own parents to fill the gaps with free babysitting while they’re at the office, or during the notoriously tricky school summer holidays. The cost-of-living crisis will have only made this reliance more pronounced. According to a 202.