OBJECTIVES This paper examines how family-building transitions (union formation and first birth) affect the attitudes of Swedes toward work and parenthood. The literature finds that these life course transitions have a traditionalizing effect on gender roles. Is this also the case in Sweden, one of the most gender-equal countries in the world? METHODS Our study uses the longitudinal Young Adult Panel Study database. We run first-difference OLS regressions on the relationship between family-building transitions and work and parenthood attitudes, distinguishing men from women, and those with more education from those with less. RESULTS We find that family transitions do slightly traditionalize attitudes toward work and parenthood, but differences by gender and education are very small. DISCUSSION AND CONTRIBUTION The overall pattern is one of striking similarity between men and women, suggesting that the gender revolution is well advanced in Sweden; traditional gender differences remain primarily among those with less education.

This study examines how similarity in work-family related attitudes matter for relationship satisfaction and union dissolution among Swedish couples. It utilizes a data set from 2009 (the Young Adult Panel Study) containing information on 1055 opposite-sex couples (married or co-residential), and registered union dissolutions up to 2014. Results indicate that couples who have similar notions on the importance of being successful at work; on the importance of having children; or on the importance of having enough time for leisure activities are more likely to be satisfied with their partner relationship than couples who have dissimilar attitudes. However, there are no effects of similarity in attitudes regarding the importance of living in a good partner relationship or doing well economically on relationship satisfaction, and we do not find any impact of similarity in attitudes of any kind on actual breakups. We find no support for specialization theory, which would predict that dissimilarity in work orientation would increase relationship quality. The study concludes that having similar priorities regarding work, career, and family does seem to matter for relationship quality, at least when it comes to the partners' satisfaction with the relationship.

Using comparable survey data from eight European countries this study investigated expected consequences of forming a co-residential relationship among non-partnered individuals aged 22-35 (N = 8443). Results showed that respondents expected improvements in their financial situation when moving in with a partner, though in all countries women held more positive expectations toward their post union formation economic situation than men. This result likely reflects the lingering traditional gender structure of the society, with men faced with the responsibility of being the main breadwinner in the family. Such an interpretation would seem to be supported by the fact that this gender gap was smallest in Sweden, France and Belgium, the countries in the current sample with the most egalitarian gender structure. Potential restrictions in personal freedom by forming a co-residential relationship, on the other hand, seem to be less important, particularly among women.

Using Norwegian survey data on partnered individuals ages 18 to 55 (N = 4,061; 31% cohabitors), the current study investigated differences across marital and cohabiting unions regarding the patterns of contact with the parents of the partner. In addition to investigating the frequency of such contact, we assessed the nature of and perceived quality of contacts with the partner's parents. The authors grouped respondents according to whether they had children with their partner and controlled for a range of selection characteristics. Results confirmed that parents with preschool children met their in-laws more frequently than the childless, irrespective of union type. Married respondents as well as cohabitors with preschool children reported better relations with their partner's parents than childless cohabitors. Taken together, the results imply that having small children was more decisive for the relationship with the parents of the partner than getting married, particularly with regard to contact frequency.

Background: Housework studies have long documented a fairness paradox, whereby unequal divisions of housework are evaluated as fair. Gender equality, both at home and at work, is strongly normative in a highly egalitarian country like Sweden, but not always matched by an equally egalitarian situation in the family which are often viewed as fair.

Objective: To explore the relationship between housework-sharing and perceived fairness of this division, using both partners’ reports, to identify how Swedish couples cluster across these measures and what individual characteristics predict cluster membership.

Methods: Using the couple-level design of the 2009 wave of the Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS, n=1,026), we are able to advance the research field and evaluate housework experience within broader couple dynamics. Our approach is exploratory and develops a typology using latent class analysis.

Results: We identify six latent groups, with distinct features. The modal Swedish-couple category comprises those who share housework equally and agree that this arrangement is fair (33% of the couples). Applying a distributive justice perspective, we find that childhood socialization, presence of children in the household, and the distribution of employment, education, income, and egalitarianism across couples are important predictors of cluster membership.

Conclusions: We find that equal-sharing/fair couples are most common in the Swedish context, suggesting clear benefits from Sweden’s expansive gender policies. Yet, there seems to be a generational divide, whereby Swedish women who witnessed housework inequality in their parental home are increasingly dissatisfied when this inequality replicates in their own lives.

Contribution: Demonstrating that housework allocations, conflict and fairness may reflect different types of couples rather than associations across those measures.

Previous research in industrialized countries finds that attitudes toward gender equality are affected by family-related transitions as young adults with egalitarian attitudes based on growing equality between the sexes in the public sphere of education and work encounter a much less equal situation in the private sphere of the family. Sweden, however, is a society known for its emphasis on gender equality in the family. This study examines the effect of family transitions on attitudes toward gender equality, asking whether egalitarian attitudes can withstand changing family transitions in Sweden. Using longitudinal data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we examine six different family transitions and three measures of attitudes toward gender equality for men and women, with only three significant findings across 18 coefficients. We conclude that most Swedish young adults possess enduring attitudes, likely because there is strong state support for families and gender sharing in the private sphere.

Most European countries, including Sweden, have witnessed considerable postponement of first births over the past several decades, and societal gender equality has been mentioned among the central reasons for the delay in childbearing. Continued postponement of parenthood over the life course can result in final childlessness, i.e. the individual will reach the end of his/her reproductive period without having become a parent. As levels of final childlessness have been increasing in most European countries, studies of childlessness have become more common. However, most of these studies deal exclusively with women, and the theorizing regarding what leads to final childlessness, particularly among men, is clearly underdeveloped. In this paper we will contribute to this research area by investigating the long-term relationships between attitudes toward domestic gender equality and men's transition to parenthood in Sweden. Our dependent variable is a close approximation of final childlessness. We use Swedish panel survey data on attitudes to the gender division of labor among still childless young adults aged 22-30 in 1999, combined with register data on births in the period 1999-2012. The article shows that the initial delay in becoming fathers evidenced by more egalitarian men is not made up in the long term.

This study focusses on Swedish couples' work adjustment following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study , we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also mre likely that only the male partne will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustment of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely  to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.

This article argues that the trends normally linked with the second demographic transition (SDT) may be reversed as the gender revolution enters its second half by including men more centrally in the family. We develop a theoretical argument about the emerging consequences of this stage of the gender revolution and review research results that bear on it. The argument compares the determinants and consequences of recent family trends in industrialized societies provided by two narratives: the SDT and the gender revolution in the public and private spheres. Our argument examines differences in theoretical foundations and positive vs. negative implications for the future. We focus primarily on the growing evidence for turnarounds in the relationships between measures of women's human capital and union formation, fertility, and union dissolution, and consider evidence that men's home involvement increases union formation and fertility and decreases union instability. Although the family trends underlying the SDT and the gender revolution narratives are ongoing and a convincing view of the phenomenon has not yet emerged, the wide range of recent research results documenting changing, even reversing relationships suggests that the gender approach is increasingly the more fruitful one.

Sweden provides strong support for childbearing and parenthood, including generously subsidizd medical, maternal, and child care, paid parental leave, and child allowances. In this context, attitudes towards parenthood are likely to have a particularly strong impact on the decision about whether and when to have children. We examine the links between first births and holding attitudes about children, not just of positive and negative attitudes, but also of ambivalence, namely those who both value children but also value the things that compete with parenthood for young adults' time and resources. Our analysis shows, measuring attitudes before the transition to parenthood, that ambivalence about childbearing delays the transition to parenthood, but not nearly as much as holding purely negative attitudes. Further, reporting an ambivalent experience from the first child had no significant effect on further childbearing, which testifies to the strong two-child norm in Sweden.