Gender equality or employment promotion? The politicization of parental leave policy in Finland

ABSTRACT

In 2022, a new parental leave system with equal leave rights for parents saw daylight in Finland. The road towards this reform was not entirely uncontroversial, and one stumbling block was different interpretations of the meaning of gender equality. This article contributes to the literature by analysing how seven political parties in Finland politicised the idea of gender equality and leave quotas during the 2010s. We argue that ideological factors delayed a reform of the leave system in a more gender-equal way, since left-wing parties not only put more emphasis on gender equality and state-regulated leave quotas for fathers than conservatives, they also did so for somewhat different reasons connected with the Social Investment paradigm. Moreover, although the conservatives did warm up to the idea of gender equality on a general level during this period, and some of them started to support the use of leave quotas, providing some of the consensus needed for the 2021 reform, this did not alter their traditional views on the family and gender roles. Instead, the policy idea of leave quotas was reframed as an instrumental tool to achieve higher (maternal) employment, and only secondarily as a tool for gender equality.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender equality
• parental leave policy
• leave quotas
• political partisanship
• ideas
• Finland

Introduction

The idea of gender equality is deeply embedded in the Nordic welfare state. Not only do Nordic countries provide a wide array of welfare services facilitating female labour participation, but they also conduct leave policies that entitle parents to paid leave when their children are young (Leira 2006). Since the 1970s, these parental leave policies have become increasingly characterised by an ambition to increase fathers’ leave uptake rates by using earmarked leaves, so-called ‘daddy quotas’ (Eydal et al. 2018). In Finland, paternity leave was introduced in 1978, and a rudimentary version of a fathers’ quota was introduced in 1991. However, even if leave rights for fathers were extended several times over the following decades, fuelled by a growing political debate about how to increase gender equality in parental leave policy, it was not until 2013 that fathers received a truly individual and reserved quota. Furthermore, it was not until 2022, under influence from the European Commission (Eduskunta 2021, European Union [EU] 2021) that the leave quotas for parents in Finland were harmonised – almost 20 years after neighbouring Sweden (Nygård and Duvander 2021, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2022).

Previous research has associated the slow development towards more gender-equal parental leaves in Finland with rigid institutions or discord between social partners (Lammi-Taskula and Takala 2009, Salmi and Lammi-Taskula 2014, Elomäki et al. 2020), diverging political partisan positions and gender ideologies (Nyby et al. 2017, Kantola and Lombardo 2019, Nyby 2020, Nygård and Duvander 2021, Ylöstalo 2022), or a strong adherence to traditional family values among Finnish parents (Hiilamo and Kangas 2009, Weckström 2014, Ylikännö et al. 2016). What is less researched, however, are the ideological factors shaping leave policy, or obstructing it, notably the ways that the idea of gender equality, and the use of quotas to make parental leave uptake more equal, were constructed and framed by parties until the abovementioned 2021–2022 leave reform. To study such phenomena not only increases our understanding of how the idea of gender equality matters in policymaking, but also sheds light on a hitherto under-researched area of Finnish parental leave policy.

This article investigates the politicisation of parental leave policy among seven leading political parties in Finland during the 2010s by focussing particularly on the ways they constructed the idea of gender equality, as well as the use of legislated leave quotas within parental leave policy. Politicisation refers to the positions parties take on a certain issue, and how such positions, or changes therein, are legitimised discursively (Nyby 2020). We analysed election manifestos and other party programmes published between 2010 and 2019 by using qualitative content analysis. First, we mapped partisan positions over time on the abovementioned issues. Second, we analysed arguments and discourses used for legitimising such positions, or for changing them. Due to the sheer volume, we focus solely on political parties and their programmes, as they can help us to answer these kinds of questions.

The article contributes to the literature on political partisanship (e.g. Huber and Stephens 2001, Korpi and Palme 2003), feminist theory (e.g. Lovenduski and Norris 1993, Kantola and Lombardo 2017), and theories on the role of ideas in social policy (e.g. Béland 2010, 2019). We argue that ideological factors played an obstructing role in the reforming of the Finnish leave system, due to the diverging views left-wing parties and conservatives had on gender equality as well as the use of leave quotas (for fathers). However, during the 2010s, some conservatives became more positive about these ideas, especially the idea of leave quotas, providing a modicum of political consensus which was needed for the 2021–2022 reform, but this did not alter their traditional views on the family and gender roles. Instead, the policy idea of using leave quotas was reframed and constructed as an instrumental tool to achieve higher (maternal) employment, rather than as a tool for gender equality.

The rest of the article is structured as follows. Next, we discuss the role of gender equality in the history of Finnish parental leave policy. Then, we discuss how such ideas relate to theories on political partisanship, gender and ideas. In the fourth section, the data and analytical design are discussed. In the penultimate section, we present our findings, and in the final section we sum up and discuss our findings.

Gender equality and Finnish parental leave policy

Gender equality is today a widely shared idea that is ‘not only a fundamental right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world’ (United Nations 2021, no page number). In parental leave policy, gender equality usually refers to an ambition to increase mothers’ participation in the labour market, while simultaneously enhancing fathers’ engagement in domestic childcare (Auth and Martinek 2017). It became a central objective in the Nordic countries during the 1970s, not least as a result of the women’s movement, leading to major investments in welfare services and parental leave rights for both parents (Leira 2006). In the 1990s, reserved leave quotas for fathers were introduced in many of these countries as a way of enhancing fathers’ engagement with their young children, and thereby also increasing gender equality in family and working life. Not only were fathers encouraged economically by income-related parental allowances with relatively high replacement rates, but also families were influenced, since refraining from using the leave quotas would shorten the total parental leave period for the family. Norway was the first country to introduce daddy quotas in 1993, but soon other countries followed (Eydal et al. 2018), except Denmark, which only recently re-introduced a daddy quota (Danish Ministry of Employment [DME] 2022).

In Finland a two-week paid paternity leave was introduced in 1978, but a genuinely individual and non-transferable daddy quota did not materialise until 2013, when fathers received a 58-day quota, of which 18 days could be used simultaneously with the mother. Previously they had access to a ‘leave bonus’, topping up paternity leave in the event that they used the two last weeks of the shareable parental leave period, but only with the mother’s consent (Salmi and Lammi-Taskula 2014). In 2011, a government committee proposed equally long (3 months) leaves for parents as a way to strengthen fathers’ leave rights and achieve higher gender equality (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2011). However, they did so at a time when the Finnish economy fell due to the financial crisis, and neoliberal ideas including a more austere view on public expenditure grew stronger (Nygård et al. 2019, Ylöstalo 2022). Hence, the fathers’ quota introduced in 2013 by PM Katainen’s Right-Left coalition represents a less far-reaching and less expensive solution than that which some of the members in the committee would have wanted (Salmi and Lammi-Taskula 2014).

Meanwhile, the discussion on how to equalise parental leave uptake behaviour and how to make the Finnish parental leave system more gender-equal continued (Elomäki et al. 2020, Nygård and Duvander 2021). Allegedly, a more gender-equal system would not only increase fathers’ engagement with their young children, but also increase maternal employment and strengthen work-life balance (European Union [EU] 2021). Sweden was often portrayed as a good model in this respect, since the Swedish Social-Democratic government made a further extension to leave rights for parents in 2016 (Nygård and Duvander 2021).

In 2017–2018, PM Sipilä’s Centre-Right government made an attempt to respond to these claims by setting up a committee to prepare a reform of the leave system, but the reform work was interrupted in early 2018 due to internal discord and for strategic reasons (Elomäki et al. 2020). However the topic was placed back on the agenda by the new Left-Centre government of PM Rinne in 2019, after the parliamentary election, and in December 2021, the Finnish parliament passed a law on a new parental leave system that entitled the birth mother to a 40-day birth leave, and each parent to a 160-day reserved leave quota with a transferable period of 0–63 days, to take effect in August 2022 (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2022).

This reform can be seen as groundbreaking. Not only was the length of leave periods for parents harmonised and extended (to 14 months, in total), but it also introduced a more gender neutral vocabulary by substituting terms such as ‘mother’s leave’ or ‘father’s leave’ with ‘parental leave’. However, the preparation of the reform was not devoid of political discord. For example, conservative parties as well as employers were worried this would lead to higher expenditure (Parliament of Finland 2021).

Interestingly, the 2021–2022 reform did not alter the existing the child home care leave, which parents can use after the parental leave period ends (after the 2022 reform this ends when the child is 14 months). This enables parents (and mostly mothers) to care for their children at home until the child turns three, whilst receiving a flat-rate state benefit (home care allowance), which is lower than the minimum parental leave benefit (see Kela 2023). Also, it remains to be seen to what extent this reform actually increases fathers’ leave uptake rates. During the 2010s, the share of fathers that used parental leave was lower in Finland than in other Nordic countries (Eydal et al. 2018). For instance, in 2016 Swedish fathers used 28.2% of the available parental leave, while Finnish fathers used only 10.5% (NOSOSCO 2017).

Thus, while the idea of gender equality became a central principle of Finnish parental leave policy in the 2010s, the road towards the 2021–2022 reform was not straightforward (Nygård and Duvander 2021, Kantola and Lombardo 2021). One such issue of controversy was gender equality and (equal) leave quotas. Consequently, it begs the question as to how such ideas were constructed by different political parties, and to what extent there was an ideological convergence over time resulting in some kind of reform consensus. In the next section, we discuss this question more in detail by turning to theories on political partisanship, gender and influential ideas.

Political partisanship, gender and ideas within parental leave policy

According to the literature on political partisanship and social policy, political parties take different ideological positions on the size, outlook and generosity of the welfare state (e.g. Huber and Stephens 2001, Korpi and Palme 2003, Budge and McDonald 2006). Basically, left-wing parties advocate bigger welfare states, more market regulation and higher economic equality than right-wing ones. Such differences can also be found in relation to the politicisation of gender and the idea of gender equality – a political division that has become increasingly important in the politics of Western democracies (Lovenduski and Norris 1993) as well as social policy, both on a national level and a European level (Leira 2006, Kantola and Lombardo 2017, Moss et al. 2019). Put simply, left-wing parties tend to be more positive towards such issues and ideas than right-wing and conservative parties (Lombardo et al. 2010, Kantola and Lombardo 2019, 2021, Nygård and Duvander 2021).

One way of understanding this division is to use the so-called GAL-TAN spectrum (Hooghe et al. 2002), making a distinction between more progressive GAL values (‘Green, Alternative, Libertarian’) and more reactionary TAN values (‘Traditional, Authoritarian, Nationalist’). In such a spectrum left-wing parties and green parties generally rank higher on GAL, while conservative parties rank higher on TAN. As pointed out by feminist scholars (e.g. Lombardo et al. 2010, Kantola and Lombardo 2021), the meanings of gender equality not only vary, but they are also split between hegemonic discourses and taboos. Nevertheless, one common denominator seems to be the overcoming of patriarchal structures, that is, to change society in a more gender equal way, which would intrinsically make such issues more salient to left-wing and green parties than right-wing ones (Freeden 1996). Hence left-wing and green parties are not only more prone to support the idea of gender equality, but also to advocate policies that promote this idea, whereas conservative parties tend to take a more negative position in such matters (Kantola and Lombardo 2019, 2021, Nygård and Duvander 2021, Ylöstalo 2022).

Moreover, the two groups use discourses to underpin their positions. While left-wing parties consider state interventions in the family sphere to be legitimate in order to change (patriarchal) structures, conservative parties associate the family institution with a certain modicum of stability and ‘negative freedom’ from state intervention, which means that parents’ decisions regarding the internal work distribution should be guided by freedom of choice rather than state-regulated decrees (Kantola and Lombardo 2019, 2021, Nyby 2020, Nygård and Duvander 2021). As shown in previous research on Finnish parties (e.g. Hiilamo and Kangas 2009, Salmi and Lammi-Taskula 2014, Autto 2016, Nyby et al. 2017, Nygård and Duvander 2021), such an ideological divide can be found in many family policy debates, for example when it comes to the extent to which parents should be allowed to choose between public and domestic childcare, or to decide which parent participates in the labour market, and which stays home with young children.

Since the 1990s, the research interest in ideas has grown, since they not only help policymakers to make sense of social problems, but also present solutions to such problems (Béland 2010, 2019, Blyth 2013). According to Schmidt, ideas generally take three main forms: specific policy ideas, general ideas, and ‘world views’ (Schmidt 2008). While policy ideas offer solutions to a particular problem, general ideas and ‘world views’ represent wider and more abstract constructions. As regards gender equality, the notion that women and men are equal and should be treated equally can be seen as a ‘world view’ applicable in almost all areas of politics (United Nations 2021). Correspondingly, ideas that have bearing on a certain area of society, such as parental leave policy, can be seen as general ideas, since they narrow down the scope of meaning and policy implication. Finally, ideas relating to specific policy tools, such as leave quotas, can be said to constitute specific policy ideas (Nygård and Nyby 2022, Nygård et al. 2019, cf., Schmidt 2008).

Furthermore, ideas can have different policy implications, or aspirations. For instance, the policy idea of ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ leave quotas reflects an ambition to obtain higher gender equality in terms of outcome, that is, to influence parental (notably paternal) behaviour (Nygård and Nyby 2022). However, it also reflects a certain degree of gender equality in terms of opportunity, since rather than forcing fathers to do this, it gives fathers the chance to stay home, although it can also ‘punish’ the family in terms of a shorter total leave if parents choose not to divide it equally. Another important question in this respect is whether such leave quotas should be equally long and equally generous in terms of replacement rates, and whether such leave rights should also be available for others rather than only nuclear families (Nygård and Duvander 2021, Koslowski 2021). In Finland, this was not always the case: until 2022, a mother’s leave quota was 105 days compared to a father’s 58 days (between 2013 and 2022), and although adoptive, transgender and other categories of parents became increasingly eligible for leave rights during the 2000s, only the 2021–2022 reform made such rights equal to those of a nuclear family (Nygård and Duvander 2021, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 2022).

One reason why gender equality became influential in parental leave policy is that it aligned with the so-called Social Investment Paradigm in the 1990s, advocated by supranational actors, such as the European Union or the OCED. This paradigm not only viewed gender equality as a right, but also as a ‘new social risk’, emanating from work-family imbalances or gender inequalities. Allegedly, social policy needed to shift attention to such risks in order to create a more activating, just and financially sustainable welfare state (Esping-Andersen et al. 2002, Morel et al. 2012, Hemerijck 2013). Due to increasing internationalisation and policy transfer mechanisms, such as EU soft governance (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000, Hulme 2005, Kantola and Lombardo 2017), such ideas spread across Europe and also influenced other Nordic countries, even though these countries already had a legacy of ‘socially-investing’ policies stretching all the way back to the 1970s (Häusermann 2018, Nygård et al. 2019). European Social Democracy became central for advocating such policies, not least since they could increase its voter support among female voters, but also because they were intimately connected to the ‘Third Way’ (e.g. Kuisma and Ryner 2012). One central policy idea in this paradigm was activating policies, that is, policies conditioning social rights, that required something in return for a social benefit, for example investments in childcare, and parental leave policy that activates mothers and increases their employment rate (Auth and Martinek 2017). Even if the paradigm has sometimes been criticised for being a form of neoliberal or ‘workfare’ ideology in disguise, due to the strong elements of activation and employability (Hemerijck 2013), and it lost some of its momentum as to the promotion of gender equality in the wake of the 2008–2009 financial crunch and the following shift towards a more neoliberal policy discourse (Kantola and Lombardo 2017, Ylöstalo 2022), there is little doubt that it influenced the ways that gender equality was framed in parental leave policy, including in Finland (Eydal et al. 2018). Furthermore, it also consists of several ideational threads, which makes it difficult to discern a single delineated ideational, or ideological, objective.

We can sum up the discussion thus far by saying that political parties from different ideological camps tend to politicise gender and to view gender equality differently. However, this depends on what type of idea we are discussing. Whereas ‘world view’ ideas on gender equality might be more univocally accepted, general ideas, and notably specific policy ideas, relating to gender tend to be more controversial. Based on this, we expect to find an ideological divide in the politicisation of Finnish parental leave policy during the 2010s, with left-wing parties being more supportive, and conservative parties more negative, towards ideas on gender equality and leave quotas. However, we also expect to find ideological convergence over time due to the influence of the Social Investment paradigm.

Data and methods

To investigate these questions, we analysed election manifestos and various other programmes published by seven of the largest parties in Finland during the period 2010–2019. In total, 33 programmes were analysed to discover how the ideas of gender equality and reserved leave quotas for fathers were politicised and constructed (see Appendix). Readings of political programmes, such as election manifestos and special programmes on social policy, reveal not only the core political values of a party, but also provide its cognitive frames for understanding the world and define its understanding of what needs to be changed (Freeden 1996, Budge and McDonald 2006). They can also be seen as a form of ‘discursive politics’, or ‘political acts’ in themselves (Fisher 2003, Lombardo et al. 2010).

The analysed time period is of special interest since parental leave and the idea of making the leave system more gender-equal was being actively debated (Elomäki et al. 2020, Nyby 2020). Moreover, this period provides a variation in political constellations, which shifted from broad Centre-Right coalitions (2010–2015), via a narrower Centre-Right coalition (2015–2019) to a Left-Centre coalition (from 2019 to 2023). The analysed parties constituted seven of the largest parties in Finland according to their average voter share during the 2010s (Statistics 2019, Mickelsson 2021). From left to right, this group included the Left Alliance, the Greens, the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party, the National Coalition Party, the Finns Party, and the Christian Democrats.¹ Even if trade unions and employers play an important role in the tripartite negotiation process concerning parental leave policy in Finland (e.g. Lammi-Taskula and Takala 2009), we chose not include them in the analysis due to sheer volume.

We used qualitative content analysis with a mix of a ‘conventional’ and ‘directed’ approach to analyse the data (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). Initially, we conducted general readings of the documents in order to get a sense of the whole and to inductively locate text passages (e.g. paragraphs or sentences) relating to parental leave rights, and notably mentions on using leave quotas for enhancing gender equality between spouses. These mentions were then coded deductively according to whether they expressed a positive, negative or neutral position regarding this topic. General mentions on parental leave policy without an explicit reference to leave quotas or gender equality were not coded. In the third step we again used an inductive approach, by scrutinising the arguments underpinning the partisan standpoints.

This analytical approach is rather straightforward, and effective for analysing patterns in partisan politicisation of parental leave policy over time. It allows interpretation, coding and qualitative analysis of political language by searching patterns and changes (Boréus and Bergström 2017). However, the method also has limitations. One is the well-known problem of imperative modality, meaning that programmes are often very laconic and use an imperative mode that does not necessarily include textual elucidations such as motivations or arguments behind standpoints. In some cases the studied topic was not mentioned at all, for example in some of the election manifestos of the Finns Party. To rectify this problem, we used matching documents, such as socio-political programmes or family policy programmes, from approximately the same years as the manifestos lacking data. Another limitation is that the approach focusses solely on the ‘input phase’ of policymaking (Nyby 2020), i.e. what parties want to achieve, without saying anything about the actual policymaking process or the political outcomes.

In the following section, we present our results by using text excerpts (translated from Finnish or Swedish by the authors) for substantiating our interpretations. The sources of these excerpts are available in the Appendix.

Results

The idea of using parental leave policy and leave quotas to enhance equality in the division of paid and unpaid work between spouses became increasingly visible in the election manifestos and other programmes by Finnish parties during the 2010s. On a general level, the idea of more equal role sharing between parents was seen in a positive light by all parties, but as expected, the question as to whether such divisions should be shaped by state-regulated leave quotas or decided by parents themselves, created an ideological divide between left-wing and green parties which were more in favour of such policies, and conservative parties which were more ambivalent, or openly negative. Interestingly, we also found ideological change over time since conservative parties, except the Christian Democrats, became more positive towards the idea of using leave quotas over time. Table 1 presents an overview of the parties’ positions in this matter.

Table 1. Overview of party positions on the use of reserved leave quotas for fathers in Finland during the 2010s.

Party	2010–14	2015–18	2019-
Left Alliance	+	+	+
Greens	+	+	+
Social Democratic Party	+	+	+
Centre Party	(–)	(+)	(+)
National Coalition Party	N/A	+	(+)
Finns Party	(–)	+	(+)
Christian Democrats	–	–	–

‘+’ denotes a positive and ‘–’ a negative position on reserved leave quotas for fathers. Parentheses are used for denoting an indirect or implicit position.

Among the left-wing parties, the Left Alliance and the Greens took a clearer position for equal parental leave quotas than the Social Democrats. The first two parties also remained more stable in their positions than the third during the analysed time period. The introduction of equal leave quotas for parents was raised by the Left Alliance in its 2011 election manifesto as well as by the Greens in their 2010 child policy programme, and their 2011 election manifesto. Both parties proposed a total parental leave period of 18 months with a six-month leave quota for each parent accompanied by a six-month shareable leave period. To the Left Alliance, such quotas were seen as a matter of rights, that is, the right of children and parents to share time together.

Children and parents have a right to spend time together. The possibility to use parental leave must be guaranteed for every parent, and economic factors cannot be allowed to interfere with this (Left Alliance, Election manifesto 2011, no page number).

Another main argument, most thoroughly elaborated by the Greens, was that this would give fathers incentives to take up parental leave, which would curb problems of gender inequalities in both family life and in the labour market, and distribute costs more equitably between female-dominated and male-dominated working places. It would also increase the wellbeing of the family, strengthen the rights of children and fathers, and increase flexibility in leave uptake. Experiences from Sweden were seen as evidence for the effectiveness of such policies.

The objective of the Greens’ parental leave model is to increase family wellbeing and gender equality. We believe that a more equal sharing of care responsibilities will give us happier families with more endurance in relation to everyday life/ … /The Greens support part-time use of parental leave, in more phases (such in Sweden) and over a longer time within a three-year period. (Greens, Child policy program 2010, 2)

In the programmes of the Social Democrats, gender equality was framed as something positive, but the party did not explicitly mention the use of leave quotas until its 2014 special programme on family policy. In its election manifesto from 2011, there was only an indirect mention of the need to strengthen work-family balance, but no mention of specific reform needs in this area. However, in its 2014 special programme on family policy and equality, the Social Democrats took a more similar position to the Left Alliance and the Greens by viewing parental leave quotas as an effective tool for increasing gender equality, and for spreading the costs more evenly between different employers. A similar leave model to the one suggested by the Left Alliance and the Greens was proposed, but with shorter quotas (a three-month leave quota for each parent, a one-month birth leave for the mother, and a nine-month shareable leave period). Again, experiences from abroad were used as arguments for the efficiency of leave quotas in the pursuit of gender equality.

International comparisons, for example experiences from Sweden and Iceland, show that reserved leave quotas for fathers increase their care responsibilities. A considerable share of parental leave should be reserved for fathers (Social Democrats, Family policy programme 2014, 10).

However, in 2019, the Social Democrats proposed a modified version of this model that would not only increase flexibility and make leave uptake more equal among parents, but that would also make leave rights more available to other family constellations and remove the current child home care leave system. It suggested that the 3-month leave quotas for each parent and the benefit for the birth parent would remain the same, but that the shareable leave period would become shorter (6 instead of 9 months), but topped up by a one-year leave period, during which a flat-rate parental allowance would be paid, and that would substitute the existing child home-care allowance (Social Democrats, Election manifesto 2019, 95–96). To change the child home care leave system in this way, would have been concordant with the strong emphasis on public childcare services in Social-Democratic ideology, and to remove elements that might impede the promotion of gender equality and (maternal) employment according to a Social Investment logic (Nygård et al. 2019).

We can sum up the results so far by saying that the idea of gender equality as well as the idea of using legislated leave quotas to achieve higher equality in outcome between parents, played a visible role in the programmes of the three left-wing parties. They all took positive positions on these matters, and their discourses were rather similar and remained relatively stable during the studied period, especially in respect of the Left Alliance and the Greens. To a certain extent all three parties drew on ideas from the Social Investment Paradigm, by seeing state intervention as inevitable to create greater equality in leave uptake between parents, and to create a more equitable financing of parental leave, even if this would increase state expenditure. However, mothers’ employment was not framed as the most important objective, even if the Social Democrats put somewhat more emphasis on relieving mothers’ struggles of work/family reconciliation than the two others. Instead, equal leave quotas were primarily framed as a matter of social justice and a securing of parents’ and children’s rights, not only for nuclear families, but also for other family forms.

If we turn our attention to the right-wing parties, we can see that the National Coalition Party, the Centre Party, and the Finns Party constitute a rather ambivalent group when it comes to increasing gender equality in parental leave policy. The National Coalition Party did not explicitly address the quota issue until 2017. It said nothing about the matter in its 2011 election programme, or the 2015 strategic government programme. Instead, it merely hinted that a reform of the leave system was needed for distributing the costs of parenthood more evenly, strengthening gender-equal parenthood and increasing employment among parents of small children. However, in its two family-related programmes from 2017 and 2018, the party shifted position by proposing a three-month leave quota for each parent followed by a six-month shareable leave period. While the former was seen as crucial for higher gender equality as well as higher maternal employment, the latter safeguards flexibility and freedom of choice of parents.

[A] reserved quota is needed for increasing the parental leave uptake rate by fathers/ … /It also needs more freedom of choice in the leave system. Therefore, alongside quotas, parents can share the additional six parental leave months in a flexible way that they see best/ … /(The National Coalition Party, Families and working life program, 2017, 3).

This citation shows a combination of the idea of higher gender equality and traditional family values, but in the 2018 programme (female) employment was framed as the main motive for such a reform: ‘Finland needs an ambitious reform/ … /that especially promotes female employment’ (Family policy programme 2018, no page number). This suggests that the party became ideologically torn between traditional family values and ideas on gender equality, creating an internal division between more traditional and liberal groups within it (Ylöstalo 2022). The most likely explanation behind this ideological shift is that the party started to consider leave quotas as a way to increase employment rates, but also to balance public budget deficits, and in the longer run, to save the welfare state. It also coincided with a wider political discussion launched by the Sipilä Centre-Right coalition that started in early 2016 between trade unions, employers and right-wing parties on how to safeguard the financial sustainability of the Finnish welfare state. Allegedly, a reform of the leave system was needed to increase the employment rate and increase the financial sustainability of the Finnish welfare system (Elomäki et al. 2020). The existing child home care allowance was seen as an obstructing element in this respect. Therefore, in 2017, the party suggested a substitution of existing child homecare leave for a new and shorter 6-month care allowance that could be divided into halves and shared between parents for a year. This was seen as a way to promote mothers’ re-entry into paid work after the insurance-based leave period.

In addition, the Centre Party constructed gender equality as something positive on a general level, but initially it took a vehemently negative position on the use of leave quotas. Historically it had advocated reforms that extended paternity leave, such as the reforms made under PM Vanhanen’s and PM Kiviniemi’s reign (2007–2011), but it did not support leave quotas or policies that might restrict parents’ freedom of choice or undermine the child home care allowance (Nyby et al. 2017, Nyby 2020). Consequently, in its 2011 election manifesto, there was a general acceptance of the idea of a more equal sharing of caring duties between parents, but instead of supporting leave quotas, it saw the child home care allowance as a better way of achieving this objective by allowing parents to decide who cared for their young children. To legitimise this position, it drew on traditional family values, such as viewing the family as a sanctum free from state involvement, and as defending parents’ freedom of choice. A similar position was also visible in the 2015 election manifesto, as well as its family policy programme from the same year.

Parental leaves and the home care of young children should facilitate child-caring solutions that are compatible with the values and choices of parents/ … /Because of this, the Centre Party/ … /opposes strict parental leave quotas for mothers and fathers (Centre Party, Family policy programme 2015, no page number).

In its family programme from 2016, the party suggests an extension of the existing fathers’ quota from 2013 (58 days) and the shareable leave period, on the condition that the cost effects were carefully investigated. However, it also strongly emphasised that the system needed to become more flexible and less complicated, while simultaneously safeguarding parents’ freedom of choice and the needs of different kinds of families (pp. 2–4). This indicates that the Centre Party shifted to a lukewarm position on the idea of leave quotas, but it did not support equal leave quotas for parents, and the discursive framing of these standpoints was still very much characterised by a traditional view of the family and gender roles. It also suggests that ideas on gender equality were ideologically challenging for the party and hard to reconcile with its traditional values, which also caused some internal divisions within the party (Elomäki et al. 2020, Ylöstalo 2022). However, since the party held the prime minister post of the Sipilä government, it could not refrain from giving some input to the discussion on the roles of quotas in the quest for higher employment that flared up 2016. In 2017, a working group was even launched to prepare for such reform, but the work was cancelled in early 2018 (Elomäki et al. 2020).

Also in the programmes by the nationalist-populist Finns Party, there was a similar change over time in its position on leave quotas. Similarly to the National Coalition Party, the Finns Party started endorsing the idea of equal leave quotas, and the reason for this was probably identical to that of the National Coalition Party and the Centre Party. For the Finns Party, such an ideological concession was probably even more necessary, but also risky, since it did not want to jeopardise its (first-time) government position or to be seen as a party evading financial responsibility in a time of financial crisis (Kantola and Lombardo 2019).

However, if we look at its programmes from the early-2010s, it was openly critical of all kinds of state interventions in the family sphere, but it did not explicitly mention parental leave quotas. For instance, in its 2015 family policy programme, it used traditional family values to implicitly question longer, or equal leave quotas, by advocating ‘[A] system that supports flexibility and freedom of choice for families instead of regulations and coercions from above’ (p. 19). This supports previous research suggesting that nationalist-populist parties generally oppose ideas of gender equality and use different discursive techniques to oppose them (Kantola and Lombardo 2019, 2021). Moreover, together with the Centre Party and Christian Democrats, the Finns Party also vehemently defended the child home care allowance and opposed a reform of the system as proposed by the Katainen Right-Left coalition in 2014 (see Nyby 2020).

[F]amilies with children are competent to make independent decisions. The compulsory division of the child home-care allowance is simply an unsustainable thought. We think that families know what the best way for them to organise childcare is (The Finns Party, Social and Health care program 2015, 19).

However, in 2017, the Finns Party changed position by proposing a 3-month quota for each parent with a 9-month shareable period. As mentioned above, this shift was probably conditioned by the political context, and the discussion about reforming the leave system that flared up in 2016. The use of equal quotas was legitimised implicitly as a way of creating a more equal work distribution between parents, but also as a way to increase maternal employment and to give children more time with their fathers (Family Policy Programme 2017, 5). Yet there is a strong accentuation of flexibility in leave use and a condemning of ‘rules that punish fathers who don’t use their leave’ (p. 5). And while the party declares it is supportive of gender equality, it still clings on to traditional views of the family as well as gender roles. For instance, it states that ‘the family is the most important unit’ (p. 3), ‘that society cannot dictate the choices of parents’ (p. 3), and that ‘gender equality cannot be promoted by depreciating the fact that the roles of the mother and the father are different, not least due to biology’ (p. 4). Similarly, its support for the child home care allowance remained steadfast.

The only one of the seven studied parties that remained consistently negative to (equal) leave quotas was the Christian Democrats. In its elections manifestos from 2011 and 2015, it strongly defended traditional family values, flexibility in leave arrangements as well as the right for parents to decide over matters that concern the division of paid and unpaid work. Although they did not oppose the idea of gender equality or the idea of a more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work between parents per se, they saw (equal) leave quotas as an infringement upon the rights of parents, their (traditional) family roles, and their freedom to choose in matters of childcare. Like the Centre Party and the Finns Party, they also supported the child home care allowance, which they saw as an important tool for implementing this freedom in practice.

The Christian Democrats do not support leave quotas between parents, since this would infringe upon their freedom of choice and lead to unnecessary regulation (Christian Democrats, Family policy program 2018, 20).

As to the extent of ideational influence from Social Investment on the conservative parties, such an influence was difficult to find, if there was even an influence to begin with. It is true that some of the conservative parties used a discourse legitimising the use of (equal) leave quotas as a way to increase maternal employment. However, this seems to be more of a reflection of neoliberal or neo-conservative, ‘workfare’-inspired ideas emanating from the Sipilä-government’s strong focus on employment and employability as tools to balance public finances (cf. Nygård et al. 2019, Ylöstalo 2022).

Discussion

The article set out to analyse the politicisation of parental leave policy and notably the idea of gender equality and leave quotas, among Finnish parties during the 2010s – a period that was characterised by a lively debate and some reform attempts to increase gender equality in the work division between and leave uptake rate of parents. Based on our findings, the following conclusions can be drawn.

First, as expected, we found an ideological divide among parties as to the question of using parental leave quotas as a way to strengthen gender equality in working and family life. While the Left Alliance, the Greens, and the Social Democrats were the foremost advocates of using equal leave quotas for fathers as a way of increasing their leave uptake behaviour, conservative parties were reluctant in this respect, especially the Christian Democrats, but also to some extent the Centre Party. In the case of the National Coalition Party and the Finns Party, the position towards using quotas was negative to begin with, but changed towards a more accepting position by the end of the studied period. Further, the idea of gender equality holds a stronger position in the programmes of left-wing parties than among right-wing parties. In a way, it would be fair to say that the left-wing parties advocate an idea of gender equality that aligns with the notion of ‘equality of outcome’, in this case in terms of a more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work among parents. By contrast the right-wing parties under study can be said to support an idea of gender equality that is more in line with the principle of ‘equality of opportunity’ (Nygård and Nyby 2022)

This supports the political partisanship theory (e.g. Huber and Stephens 2001, Korpi and Palme 2003), even if the ideological divide corresponded more to a GAL-TAN spectrum than a classical left-right continuum (Hooghe et al. 2002). It also aligns with feminist literature showing that gender and gender equality are (still) contested ideas in social policymaking (e.g. Lombardo et al. 2010) as well as the ‘new politics’ and the literature on ideas by showing that parties started to acknowledge ‘new’ social risks’ and saw a reform of the leave system as a way to regulate such risks (Häusermann 2018, Abou-Chadi and Immergut 2019, Béland 2019).

Second, even if there were some similarities in how parties argued and legitimised their positions on gender equality and (equal) leave quotas, we found some traces of an ideational influence from the Social Investment paradigm in the discourses used by left-wing parties and the Greens, such as framing the use of equal leave quotas as an investment in (future) parental and child wellbeing, rights, and work/family balance. We also found references to the employment imperative inherent in the Social Investment paradigm in some of the programmes of the Social Democrats. On the other hand, references to ‘best practices’ abroad, notably Sweden, were used by both left-wing and right-wing parties.

Among the conservative parties, on the other hand, the positions against (equal) leave quotas were mainly legitimised by using ideas relating to the family as a sanctum, principles of negative freedom, as well as parents’ rights to decide on matters concerning childcare and work division between parents. This does not of course mean that the principle of ‘freedom from state interference’ should be interpreted as the same as support for traditional values in every situation, since they constitute two separate principles and since they often are advocated both by conservative and liberal parties (e.g. Freeden 1996, Budge and McDonald 2006). These results corroborate findings from earlier research (e.g. Hiilamo and Kangas 2009, Nyby et al. 2017). By contrast, we found no explicit references to a Social Investment logic in these party programmes, which of course does not mean that such influences did not exist. As noted in the data and methods section, the data at hand was not the best for tracing such influences. Instead, we found that there was another ideational, or ideological, influence at play here and that influence related more to a neo-liberal/neo-conservative discourse on employment rates, public finances and the saving to the Finnish welfare state (cf. Nygård et al. 2019, Ylöstalo 2022). To what extent this discourse emanated from abroad, for instance the European Union or the OECD, or from the ideological outlook of the Sipilä government, is difficult to say, but the evidence shows that, from 2016 on, the National Coalition Party, the Finns Party, and also to some extent the Centre Party became more positive to using (equal) leave quotas in parental leave policy, since these were viewed as beneficial for mothers’ employment and therefore for the future sustainability of the welfare state. This leads us to the next conclusion.

Third, we see that partisan gender ideologies do not exist in a vacuum, or are devoid of change, since the conservative parties became more positive to gender equality, to leave quotas, or even to the idea of granting equal leave rights for parents, during the studied period. This ideological shift was not only related and conditioned by the political discussion going on around 2016 as well as the government constellation, but it also included a reframing of the policy idea of leave quotas, so it would fit in to the otherwise traditional gender ideologies and family values of these parties. The strained financial situation of the state, and the neoliberal/neoconservative political discourse on workfare and austerity policies that emerged in Finland around 2016 (Ylöstalo 2022, Nygård et al. 2019), created a momentum for these parties, and especially the Finns Party, to reframe the idea of (equal) leave quotas for strategic reasons, so that it became a solution to the financial problems of the state and low employment rates, and could be reconciled with the otherwise traditional views on families and gender in these parties. In other words, (equal) leave quotas were reframed primarily as a tool for increasing employment levels, and only indirectly, or even imaginatively, as a tool for enhancing gender equality (cf. Kantola and Lombardo 2019, 2021, Ylöstalo 2022). Also the Social Democrats viewed (maternal) employment as important for the balancing of state finances, but it did not draw on this kind of neoliberal/neoconservative discourse, instead it saw employment more as a right, as a way to achieve higher wellbeing and as a way to reconcile work/family life in accordance with a Social Investment discourse on gender equality (Hemerijck 2013).

The observed ideological convergence between Left and Right, has probably been important for reaching the political consensus needed for the preparation of the 2021–2022 parental leave reform (Ylöstalo 2022, Elomäki et al. 2020, Nygård and Duvander 2021), even if the reform also bears witness to a political compromise and ideological clashes between the two left-wing parties and the Centre Party. One evidence of such compromise is that the child home care allowance and leave system remained intact.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although the liberal Swedish People’s Party has received somewhat higher average voter support than Christian Democrats, we omitted it from the analysis due to its character as a primarily ethno-linguistic/cultural party advocating mainly language rights for the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland (Mickelsson 2021).

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