Similar Negotiations over Childcare? A Comparative Study of Fathers’ Parental Leave Use in Finland and Sweden
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article raises an important social topic and should be published. However, revision is needed before the publication.
I suggest that the authors update their article by adding information (at least some bits of it) on the current situation in this respect in the countries studied (the article concerns a period over 10 years ago).
Additionally, recent discussions and recommendations in the last few years on the forum of the European Union (both European Comission and European Parliament) regarding the promotion of paternity leave in the Member States should be taken into account and put in the context of this paper.
At the end the Authors write: "We welcome comparisons with other countries". Well, it would be better to add some information. This topic is described, to some extent in some documents related to the above mentioned EU debate. So, at least some general could and should be added.
Author Response
Dear Reveiwer 1,
We are grateful for your comments and answer them one by one below. We think that they have helped a lot in completing the manuscript. Please find below our answers to your comments.
The article raises an important social topic and should be published. However, revision is needed before the publication. I suggest that the authors update their article by adding information (at least some bits of it) on the current situation in this respect in the countries studied (the article concerns a period over 10 years ago).
>>Thank you for this comment. We have updated the information on Finland and Sweden so the reader gets an idea of the development, especially the most recent reforms in Finland. However the topic of the paper is the specific situation that was present 10 years ago, where Finland and Sweden could be compared as countries with different parental leave policies but in general similar set-ups of welfare states and similar culture. We are thus interested in a time period where Finland and Sweden differed more than they do today as this is a better test of the theory and answers our question on whether the same or different patterns of fathers’ leave use, albeit on different levels, are found in different policy contexts. We have added sentences in the introduction and discussion to make this clearer.
Additionally, recent discussions and recommendations in the last few years in the forum of the European Union (both European Comission and European Parliament) regarding the promotion of paternity leave in the Member States should be taken into account and put in the context of this paper.
>>We have added the discussion related to the new directive on family balance which is indeed very relevant here. We are grateful for this suggestion as it brings the article close to the current questions on parental leave use.
At the end the Authors write: "We welcome comparisons with other countries". Well, it would be better to add some information. This topic is described, to some extent in some documents related to the above mentioned EU debate. So, at least some general could and should be added.
>>We agree this was a very vague phrase and we have excluded it. Instead we try to be more concrete and add the mentioned reference to the new EU directive.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
After read your paper I have this comments to do:
Different theme, but interesting since the parents also have the right to participate in the care of the child at birth.
Abstract: includes the necessary information for the summary.
Introduction: Justified, it presents the conditioning questions of the study.
Literature Review: addresses three main points of the study, providing a dense explanation on the subject. The references are not updated, and 2020 has no works, of 2019 only two, 2018 and 2017 four each.
Expectations: there is an item with this title that presents as if they were the hypotheses of the study. A similar subject is presented in the Introduction.
Materials and Methods: the data analyzed are from a distant period, with more than ten years, which may not represent the situation of the two countries studied - Sweden and Finland.
Results: the results are presented in detail.
Discussion: discusses the data, but does not relate them to the theoretical foundation.
Conclusion: it does not have this topic, it is together with the item Discussion. Please dived this.
Best Regards and good work.
Author Response
Dear Reveiwer 2,
We are grateful for your comments and answer them one by one below. We think that they have helped a lot in completing the manuscript. Please find below our answers to your comments.
After read your paper I have this comments to do:
Different theme, but interesting since the parents also have the right to participate in the care of the child at birth.
Abstract: includes the necessary information for the summary.
Introduction: Justified, it presents the conditioning questions of the study.
Literature Review: addresses three main points of the study, providing a dense explanation on the subject. The references are not updated, and 2020 has no works, of 2019 only two, 2018 and 2017 four each.
>>We have now added more recent references and brought the literature review up to date. Thanks for pointing this out.
Expectations: there is an item with this title that presents as if they were the hypotheses of the study. A similar subject is presented in the Introduction.
>>We chose to call this section expectations as we do not find sufficiently clear theory to write out coherent hypotheses. We are pointing the reader in the expected direction of what results we are expecting. We have added some sentences here to be as clear as possible but really we are asking more question and do not have completely clear expectations.
Materials and Methods: the data analyzed are from a distant period, with more than ten years, which may not represent the situation of the two countries studied - Sweden and Finland.
>>Yes, this is true and we now try to explain why we did this choice. The reason is that we want to compare similar context with different policy and very different level of fathers’ leave. In this way we can discuss how much policy matters, and how much we can expect general patterns across countries. We hope this is now clear.
Results: the results are presented in detail.
Discussion: discusses the data, but does not relate them to the theoretical foundation.
>>We now make reference back to the theoretical frame on negotiation in the discussion and we discuss the results more thoroughly.
Conclusion: it does not have this topic, it is together with the item Discussion. Please dived this.
>>We decided to keep the concluding parts within the discussion as they go together and they are hard to disentangle in this study. We want to end with discussing the future of fathers’ leave and what is to expect and this is a bit too tentative to be part of a conclusion.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revision is satisfactory. The Authors explained well all doubtful points in their letter, I appreciate most the explicit and clear explanation of relevance of the period 1999-2009. Also the new ending, with comment on recent EU family balance directive is done as required.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
After read, again, your paper I think your changes are good and paper more fit.
Congratlations
