six - Family policy and gender equality in the new millennium

Summary

The first decade of the new millennium has been a dramatic period in the history of gender equality and family policy. Starting with an analysis of how (radical) feminism came to the fore in the policy battles of election campaigns in the early 2000s, which resulted in the establishment of a new political party called Feminist Initiative, this chapter explores how the Swedish political landscape turned feminist. However, the initial success of feminist policy ambitions was to end in conflict and the resulting political death of feminism. Meanwhile, family policy developed, built on the foundations laid in earlier decades; the expansion of the parental insurance scheme and the introduction of a maximum fee for public day care were the main developments before the change of government in 2006. Two exceptions to this established pattern were the introduction of much longed-for legislation in 2002 on the right of same-sex couples to adopt children, and, in 2005, on the right of lesbian couples to use reproduction technologies (insemination) in public medical centres.

The need for feminism in policy making was not the only debate among policymakers and intellectuals. Another, closely related, discussion became more prominent during the first years of the new millennium, namely the debate on gender equality and diversity. Post-colonial researchers argued that the high-profile gender equality policies in Sweden paradoxically did not acknowledge different experiences among women (and men) and questioned the very idea of womenfriendliness. This resulted in a heated debate on ‘Swedishness’ and structural racism.

As discussed later, the period 2000-10 has been marked by general political turbulence. Following the quick and unexpectedly strong recovery of the Swedish economy in 1999 and 2000, with growth rates of around 4% and a dramatic decrease in unemployment, the tone of the economic, social and labour market policy debate changed. Throughout the 2000s, the economy had been relatively strong, even though the end of the dotcom boom, which accounted for much of the economic upswing around the turn of the millennium, hit Sweden hard. Indeed, Sweden, like most other high-income countries, enjoyed a period of uninterrupted economic growth between 2003 and 2008, and, although not immune to the current world economic crisis, Sweden has not been as badly affected as many other nations within the European Union (Schön, 2010).

Despite these relatively positive developments in the economy, unemployment (especially among migrants) and high levels of sick leave (especially among women and older workers) continued to plague the social democratic government, and these formed two of the key campaigning issues for the centre-right opposition.