1 . Along with its neighbors, Sweden features near the top of most sex-equality rankings. The World Economic Forum rates it as having one of the narrowest sex gaps in the world. Sweden is not only a good place for a woman, but it appears to be one for new dads. Close to ninety percent of Swedish fathers take paternity leave (陪产假). Last year some 340,000 dads took a total of 12 million days’ leave, that is, approximately seven weeks each. Women take even more leave days to spend time with their children, but the gap is shrinking. Why do Swedish dads take so much time off work to raise their children?

Forty years ago Sweden became the first country in the world to introduce a paid parental-leave allowance. Benefits consisted of ninety percent of wages for 180 days per child, and parents were free to share the days between them in whatever way they pleased. But the policy was hardly a hit with dads: in the policy’s first year men took only 0.5% of all paid parental leave.

Today they take a quarter of it. One reason is that the policy has become more generous, with the number of paid leave days for the first child increasing from 180 to 480. In 1995 the first so-called “daddy month” was introduced. Under this reform, families in which each parent took at least one month of leave received an additional month to add to their total allowance. The policy was expanded in 2002 so that if the mother and father each took at least two months’ leave, the family would get two extra months. Some politicians now want to go further, advocating that the present system of shared leave be turned into one of personal rights, under which mothers should be allowed to take only half of the family’s allowance, with the rest reserved for fathers.

Since Swedish men started to take more responsibility for child upbringing, women have seen both their incomes and levels of self-reported happiness increase. Paying dads to change nappies(尿布) and hang out at playgrounds seems to benefit the whole family.