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Osnaživanje, stil i inspiracija spajaju se u svakom izdanju našeg magazina.
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June 1, 2026
When society expects both mothers and fathers to share parental leave and childcare responsibilities, the motherhood penalty becomes smaller. Proof? Sweden’s parental leave system.
Be honest: during pregnancy, did you ever seriously question the assumption that you — not your partner — would take parental leave after giving birth? Although Serbian law allows fathers to take childcare leave, very few men actually use it. Why? Because society still overwhelmingly expects mothers to carry the primary responsibility for childcare, especially during the early months of a child’s life.
These expectations form the foundation of what we call the motherhood penalty: because of career interruptions and childcare responsibilities, mothers are paid less, promoted less often and face greater hiring discrimination. So how do you break that cycle?
Sweden offered one possible answer: teach society to expect equal involvement from fathers. Back in 1995, the country introduced a policy requiring fathers to take part of the parental leave. It was not simply an option — it came with consequences. If fathers did not take at least 30 days of leave, the family lost access to that portion of the benefit entirely. Over time, the mandatory paternal quota continued to increase.
Today, the Swedish model works like this:
But the most important part of the system is the “father’s quota”: fathers are required to use at least 90 days of parental leave themselves. The rest can be transferred between parents however they choose, but the father must personally take a minimum of three months off.
Nearly three decades after introducing the first paternal leave quota, Sweden has one of the lowest motherhood penalty rates in the Western world. The situation is not perfect yet:
Still, research shows measurable improvement year after year.
Long-term career penalties for women in Sweden are estimated at around 9%, compared to roughly 35–40% in many other developed countries. Every additional month of parental leave taken by fathers increases mothers’ earnings over the following four years by approximately 6.7%. Research also found that greater paternal involvement in parental leave reduced rates of postpartum depression and antidepressant use among Swedish mothers.
What ultimately changed things was not just legislation itself, but the cultural shift that followed. Once fathers began taking parental leave in large numbers, mothers returned to work earlier and men started carrying a much larger share of invisible domestic labor — childcare, doctor visits, daycare logistics and everyday household responsibilities.
Suddenly, women were no longer expected to carry everything alone. That reduction in invisible labor directly improved women’s stress levels, mental health and professional stability. Over time, the policy also transformed social norms. In Sweden, it became socially expected that fathers take parental leave. Employers gradually stopped assuming that childcare responsibilities automatically belonged to mothers — and that shift changed how women were perceived professionally. The moment society stopped expecting women to sacrifice careers alone for childcare, the motherhood penalty began to shrink.
Mothers were not the only ones who benefited from this model. A major Swedish longitudinal study found that men who took parental leave had roughly a 34% lower risk of stress-related mortality and health problems later in life. Researchers concluded that this was not simply the result of Sweden’s family policies, but also because involved fathers tended to build more stable relationships and healthier lifestyles.
The same perspective appears in the work of Swedish photographer Johan Bävman, creator of the project Swedish Dads. After becoming a father himself, he wanted to show that childcare is not — and should not be — considered exclusively women’s work. He began photographing fathers caring for children during parental leave: in parks, kitchens, bathrooms and in the middle of ordinary family chaos.
Without romanticizing fatherhood or glorifying men for basic parenting responsibilities, his photographs simply show fathers cooking, changing diapers, putting children to sleep and organizing life around family obligations. Many of these men openly spoke about how parental leave improved their lives and strengthened their families.
And perhaps that is the most important lesson of the Swedish model: the motherhood penalty is not a biological destiny. It is a social consequence of how societies distribute childcare responsibilities. When society expects mothers to sacrifice their careers, women pay the price through lower salaries, slower career progression and greater emotional burden. When those same expectations are directed toward fathers as well, the consequences begin to change. Sweden’s model reminds us that caring for children is not “helping mothers” — it is a shared responsibility.
