ABSTRACT
Case Story: The Opportunity of Paternal Leave Patrik is a 36-year-old father of two boys, Filip (4 years old) and Jesper (1 year old) and has a problem with his work supervisor. He has used parental leave to work part-time for a total of 15 months since his eldest son was born. He has worked for several years at a small high-tech company with international business dealings. Patrik’s supervisor, who has two teenage children but did not take parental leave, is getting tired of this arrangement, and at the latest company progress meeting he commented about the leave and asked when exactly Patrik planned to come back to work full-time. At the same time, the supervisor emphasized that he knows that all employees, male and female alike, have the right to take parental leave. But the company is small and competitive and so certain key people need to work full-time …
For about five years Patrik has lived with Anna, who is 34 years old. Patrik and Anna plan to marry but haven’t got around to it yet. Anna also works full-time at the small company, but in a completely different branch than Patrik. Both are interested in and committed to their jobs and decided early in their relationship that when they had children they would take turns staying at home. When Filip was born, Anna was home full-time for six months and after Filip began pre-school they both took leave part-time and worked part-time. But when their second son Jesper was born, both parents wanted Patrik to get involved earlier, so they chose to begin sharing parental leave when Jesper was just 3 months old.
