ABSTRACT
In an age of globally driven and highly competitive labour markets, where women are now viewed as an essential workplace commodity, many countries are grappling with the difficulties and dilemmas posed by the relatively new challenges of facilitating good family/workplace relationships through law. The approaches adopted in Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, are often presented as the Holy Grail of family-friendly policies: in Sweden, for example, parental leave was introduced in 1974 and is paid at 80 per cent of earnings for 60 weeks. It can be taken by either parent, but each has the right to his or her own leave quota, known as the ‘daddy’ or ‘mummy’ months. In Sweden, the involvement of fathers is central and encouraged through policy discourse that values his care-giving potential (see for example Devan 2005; Dulk et al. 2005; Plantin et al. 2003). Other industrial countries, such as the USA and Australia, do not bode anywhere near as well (see for example Gornick and Meyers 2003). The latter has been struggling to find the most appropriate means of accommodating work and family for some time but, as
yet, only offers a right to unpaid parental leave and then only to those with a year’s employment history. Women clearly take time away from the workplace following childbirth, but they are not entitled to maternity pay during this time, although there is a strong call that this reality of care-giving be recognised economically by the state (see HREOC 2007; see also Charlesworth and Macdonald 2007; Owens 2005).
