State-funded support for families in Sweden: Historical trends and contemporary changes
This seminar will present and discuss Swedish family policies, providing a brief historical overview and addressing current changes.
State-funded support for families in Sweden: Historical trends and contemporary changes
21 May 2026, 12:00 – 13:00
In the 1930s, reforms were introduced to encourage childbearing and support parents in the care and upbringing of their children. Since then, the government has continuously expanded and intensified its efforts, aiming to ensure auspicious childhoods for all while simultaneously encouraging both parents to participate in paid labour and to share household duties and childcare equally.
Universal interventions have been prioritised such as cash benefits, free health and dental care for children, subsidised public childcare, and parent education programmes. However, in the past decade a shift has occurred: the government now encourages local actors such as municipalities, counties, and NGOs to expand their services and to offer not only universal interventions but also selected and indicated services to specific “target groups” that “need specific attention”.
These changes will be reflected upon, and attention will be given to how parents’ responsibilities and needs, capacities and incapacities, are represented in the policy texts.
No need to book in advance, just turn up!
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Paul Bradbury/Caia Image.
Professor Disa Bergnehr
Professor of Education
Department of Education, Linnaeus University
Disa has a PhD in Child Studies. Some of her research interests are family policies, media representations of parenthood, resettlement strategies of immigrant parents and youth, school health services, and children's and parents’ health, wellbeing and development.
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