I'm a dad in Stockholm and currently in the first month of my parental leave which is expected to last at least more 6 months. My girlfriend just went back to work. Our daughter is 11 months old.
I worked 75% from the time she was 6 months old until a month ago when I went for a 100% parental. My employer pays me a bonus on top of the state money as a perk.<p>As far as I am concerned I can’t even imagine it being any other way. I understand how fortunate I am to be in Sweden. It truly is an amazing system.
The article talks about federal gov not doing things better. Maybe it should,but the way america works is that these sorts of laws are left for individual states. America has a lot of problems like this,states should do better but voters don't really care much about state politics. I can tell you a majority of americans probably don't even know who their governor is(I think I do but not really sure). On top of that,it's not very hard to move a business between states or for people in general to move around so states have to compete with one another on being friendly to economic contributors.<p>I am sure it is much more complex, but I do think the root cause lies in the american constitution and the role played by federal and state governments. The federal gov should either be a whole lot more capable(or overreaching for some) or a whole lot less significant,forcing popular politics to be centered at the state level.
And did you know there are actually more billionaires-per-capita in Sweden than in the USA [1]? Norway as well. So it's actually possible to have both an amazing welfare system and loads of billionaires at the same time.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-ranked-by-billionaires-in-proportion-to-population-2015-7?r=US&IR=T" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-ranked-by-billiona...</a>
The article acknowledges that tax rates are significantly higher in Sweden in order to pay for these benefits.<p>Has anyone modeled typical take home income (after taxes) over a lifetime vs the costs of procuring similar parental services in each country (daycare for example)?<p>My hypothesis would be that in the US, you’d probably still come out ahead in net income even after paying for these services. Could be wrong of course, but that’s my best guess.
This thread is quite timely in that I just watched a great documentary about the differences between America and Sweden. If you have amazon prime it’s free to watch on prime video.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/dp/B07HNDHL6H" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/...</a>
That's the result of having a country with a smaller population. This gives citizens more even access to quality education and more even access to all kinds of opportunities.