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especially among fathers (National Social Insurance Board 2002; Swedish
Social Insurance Agency 2010). The reform of reserved months was,
however, part of a political compromise and was introduced in combination
with a cash for care system, giving an allowance to parents who wanted to
stay at home with the child after the parental leave period to postpone
external childcare alternatives (Ferrarini and Duvander 2010). When the
Liberal-Conservative government changed to a Social Democratic
government six months after the reforms were legislated, the cash for care
system was quickly abolished, but the reserved months and individualized
leave were kept.
The second reserved month was introduced by a Social democratic
government in 2002 with much less debate and much less opposition. One
reason was that the leave was extended by one month to 16 months at the
same time, thus reserving time for one parent (that is, often, the father)
did not decrease the leave length for the other parent (that is, often, the
mother).
Also since 2002 parental leave has been heatedly debated, especially
whether to increase the reserved periods for each parent. For example, a
government commission on the subject suggested a 5+5+5 month system
(Government commission 2005). The Liberal-Conservative government in
2008 instead chose the new alternative of introducing a gender-equality
bonus to parents who shared the leave (Duvander and Johansson 2012).
The ceiling for the benefit was also raised, partly to eliminate economic
restrictions in leave use for fathers who more commonly had incomes over
the ceiling.