Swedish parents paid to care for sick kids

• Posted on January 13, 2022January 13, 2022
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

When children fall ill in Sweden, parents can take time off to care for them, while still pocketing 80% of their salaries. But the pandemic has put pressure on the popular policy.

With three children in preschool, branding manager Jeremy Cothman was prepared for colds, bugs or Covid-19 to affect his family at some point over the winter. But the run-up to Christmas was even worse than he expected.

“We had a rotating carousel of sick kids who had either fever or norovirus,” says the 42-year-old, who works for a recruitment tech company in Stockholm. “The illness eventually culminated in night-time vomiting and early trips to our building’s laundry facilities to wash clothes and linens.” 

However, some of the pressure on his family was eased thanks to a policy called Vård av Barn (usually shortened to ‘VAB’). It loosely translates to “care of child”, and gives parents the right to take paid time off to look after their children if they get sick. This means that Swedish parents, unlike many around the world, don’t have to scramble to find relatives or friends to help, take holiday or unpaid leave or simply try and carry on working from home while their children are ill.

“It’s a huge safety net,” says Cothman, who’s originally from the US. He and his wife, a chief marketing officer, took nine VAB days between them during their children’s latest sickness spell. “We have no other family support whatsoever in Sweden, [so] we have a hard time dealing with shocks to our family system. Without VAB there’s no way we would both be able to manage career, family life and our own mental health simultaneously.”

Alongside Sweden’s more famous family-friendly policies such as parental leave and subsidised childcare, VAB is increasingly being used by Swedish businesses as a tool for attracting and retaining international talent like Cothman. But, similarly to other employee wellbeing initiatives such as unlimited holiday or mandatory exercise slots, VAB brings challenges as well as benefits, including concerns it could stunt parents’ careers if they take it too often. 

A family-friendly working culture

The VAB benefit might sound like an idea dreamed up by employers during the pandemic, but it’s actually been enshrined in Swedish law for decades. The state picks up 80% of a parent’s salary, capped at around SEK1,081 ($120, £88) a day. Mothers and fathers can take as many days as they need, up to 120 each year per child, until they turn 12 (although a doctor’s note is required after eight consecutive days). Parents can also nominate other family members, friends or neighbours, as carers who get paid VAB on their behalf. Even the self-employed are entitled to the benefit, which is means-tested in relation to their annual earned income. All the paperwork is handled via the Swedish Social Insurance Agency’s app.

-BBC