Nordic Talks: Parental Leaves in the Nordics. Inspiration for California?
“It’s easy in Sweden to work and have kids.” — Making Motherhood Work
Nordic countries are renowned for their generous parental leaves. All evidence suggests that these leaves bring a host of benefits including improved maternal and infant health (SDG #3), promoting gender equality (SDG #5), supporting economic benefits including a more robust and resilient labor force (SDG #8), and directly tacking issues of economic inequality (SDG #10). Despite these many known benefits, the United States is the only country in the developed world without guaranteed parental leaves. No longer satisfied with the status quo, innovative states like California and companies like IKEA are working to shift the paradigm to provide guaranteed parental leaves.
Hear from experts including Anu Partanen, author of Nordic Theory of Everything, and Professor Caitlyn Collins, author of Making Motherhood Work with video introduction by Professor Robert Reich. Moderated by Dr. Robert Strand, this event will be highly interactive in nature with significant audience participation. Our intent is to inform parental leave policy and practice in California to take action. We will specifically consider what barriers are present in a California context to implement successful parental leaves and how might we overcome these barriers, drawing inspiration from the Nordics.
We are grateful to the Nordic Council of Ministers for their generous support, Johan Bävman for use of imagery from Swedish Dads exhibit, and Norden Living for kindly providing the Nordic themed stage vignette. This event is the first in a series of collaborations with the Nordic Council of Ministers from which the podcast “Nordic Talks” will be produced. #TheNordics
