Incentive or Obstacle? The Use of Parental Leave of Immigrant Mothers

Eleonora Mussino, Stockholm University
Ann-Zofie Duvander, Stockholm University

Like in in many other countries the labor market situation of the foreign-born population in Sweden is worse than for the native-born population. At the same time Sweden is a universalistic welfare state with social policies directed towards parents without any distinction by citizenship. With this paper we want contribute to the debate on the effects of a generous parental leave as well as the welfare state’s strategy to speed up the integration process for newly arrived immigrants. Using population registers we want investigate to which extent newly arrived immigrants use the benefits right after the arrival and if the use of parental leave represent an obstacle to the future labor participation or it facilitate an economically stable situation in the host country. We will focus on women arriving in Sweden with at least one child younger than 8 years old. The results will be available for the PAA meeting.