Social Inclusion or Gender Equality? Political Discourses on Parental Leave in Finland and Sweden

During the 2010s, both Finland and Sweden made advancements in their parental leave systems by widening the right to paid parental leave to a greater diversity of family constellations and investing in gender-equal leave distribution through longer leave periods reserved for the father. However, in the latter respect, Sweden has remained more successful than Finland. This article analyses government and political party discourses in Finland and Sweden during the 2010s in pursuit of an explanation to this difference and for understanding how ideas on social inclusion and gender equality have been used to drive, or block, policy reforms in the field of parental leave. The results show that the parental leave discourses have become influenced by ideas on social inclusion and gender equality in both countries, but in somewhat different ways. While gender equality has retained a stronger position in the Swedish discourse and its policy, social inclusion, and notably the rights of same-sex parents, have become more visible in the Finnish. However, the results also show that both ideas have remained contested on a party level, especially by confessional and nationalist-populist parties.

In Brief

Same-sex parents, how police harassment affects adolescent mental health, and unequal distribution of household labor. New research from the journals.

Can Social Desirability Be Detected Statistically at the Macro-Sociological Level?

While a few have argued that social science has been subject to progressive biases, others have discounted such ideas. However, no one has yet performed empirical tests over a large range of studies for such possible bias, which we label macro-level social desirability (MLSD). Combining the results from fifty-nine empirical studies that assessed rates of nonheterosexuality among children of same-sex parents, we found that the higher the maximum rates reported, the less likely those reports were to have been cited in Google Scholar by counts or by annual rate, which may reflect MLSD. However, after several statistical controls, the association for counts became non-significant, while the association for rates became stronger, although the effect sizes were in a moderate (d = .28 or higher) to large range (d, up to .68) by either analysis. Generally, research quality acted as a suppressor variable for MLSD but was significantly related to both counts and rates of citations, indicating that higher quality articles were more likely to have been cited, even controlling for the number of years since first publication. Higher quality articles were slightly more likely to report higher rates of nonheterosexuality among children of same-sex parents. We discuss implications of our findings and suggest future directions of research.

Potential differences between the political attitudes of people with same-sex parents and people with different-sex parents: An exploratory assessment of first-year college students

Children were often near the center of public debates about legal marriage recognition for same-sex couples. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the case that resulted in legal same-sex marriage recognition, stressed the importance of these children as one of many factors compelling the opinion. Estimates indicated same-sex couples were raising 200,000 children in the United States. Children raised by same-sex couples may be politically socialized in distinct ways compared to children of different-sex couples because lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals tend to hold distinct and progressive political viewpoints on a wide variety of issues. What are the political attitudes of people with same-sex parents? In this exploratory study, we analyze a large, representative survey of first-year college students across the United States; we find few differences between people with same-sex and different-sex parents, and some of those differences may be attributable to households and respondent characteristics. When on the rare occasion a difference exists, we find that people with same-sex female parents are more progressive, but people with same-sex male parents are more conservative. Gender differences also emerged, with some distinctive patterns between males with same-sex parents and females with same-sex parents.

Same-sex Parenting Practices in Hungary as an Assertion of Intimate Citizenship

My paper examines the practices of Hungarian same-sex parents through which they claim inclusion in a society whose laws and public discourses define the concept of family in a heteronormative way, and where legal and practical constraints make it difficult for same-sex couples to become parents. I suggest that LGBTQ people and communities exhibit considerable agency in breaking through the barriers to their plans and acceptance. This agency does not only manifest itself in political activism (including its personalized versions, such as coming out), but also in private, sometimes even illegal and semi-legal practices like language use, finding loopholes in the system, promoting alternative values or leaving the country. The examination of these practices from an intimate citizenship perspective may broaden the concept itself and helps examine and acknowledge the power of individuals to fight against heteronormative views of family and relationships.

Same-sex Parenting Practices in Hungary as an Assertion of Intimate Citizenship

My paper examines the practices of Hungarian same-sex parents through which they claim inclusion in a society whose laws and public discourses define the concept of family in a heteronormative way, and where legal and practical constraints make it difficult for same-sex couples to become parents. I suggest that LGBTQ people and communities exhibit considerable agency in breaking through the barriers to their plans and acceptance. This agency does not only manifest itself in political activism (including its personalized versions, such as coming out), but also in private, sometimes even illegal and semi-legal practices like language use, finding loopholes in the system, promoting alternative values or leaving the country. The examination of these practices from an intimate citizenship perspective may broaden the concept itself and helps examine and acknowledge the power of individuals to fight against heteronormative views of family and relationships.

School Outcomes of Children Raised by Same-Sex Parents: Evidence from Administrative Panel Data

Although widely used in policy debates, the literature on children’s outcomes when raised by same-sex parents mostly relies on small selective samples or samples based on cross-sectional survey data. This has led to a lack of statistical power and the inability to distinguish children born to same-sex parents from children of separated parents. We address these issues by using unique administrative longitudinal data from the Netherlands, which was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. These data include 2,971 children with same-sex parents (2,786 lesbian couples and 185 gay male couples) and over a million children with different-sex parents followed from birth. The results indicate that children raised by same-sex parents from birth perform better than children raised by different-sex parents in both primary and secondary education. Our findings are robust to use of cousin fixed effects and coarsened exact matching to improve covariate balance and to reduce model dependence. Further analyses using a novel bounding estimator suggest the selection on unobserved characteristics would have to be more than three times higher than the selection on observed characteristics to reduce the positive estimates to zero.