Research project Swedish family policy aims to make it possible for parents to combine work and family, and the law gives parents a range of tools to adapt their work to family needs. However, there is evidence suggesting that these tools are insufficient. The project examines whether Swedish family policy gives parents a positive control over stressors in work and family, and if and how this varies by gender and class.
The project comprises two integrated steps: * In step one, we examine how parents' strategies for balancing work and family interact with their actual possibilities to adapt work to family needs. A key question is whether parents actually can make use of their statutory rights (flexible use of parental leave, shortened weekly working hours, leave to take care of sick children), and how and why these options are used/not used. We also study what the statutory rights mean in relation to demands from work and family, and how they may influence opportunities in modern 'flexible' working life, as well as how strategies to combine work and family vary by gender and class. * In step 2 , we examine how parents' strategies and working conditions relate to the degree of conflict between work and family ('work -family conflict'), that is, the experience that work creates a negative stress in family life. Here we also consider alternative measures of stress and well-being.
