Response to interpellation 2024/25:499 on a more modern social insurance protection for pregnant women
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 M considers that women should be given good conditions to continue working during pregnancy to ensure economic security and equality 1. 1 M argues that the investigation's proposals could increase women's absence from the labor market and negatively affect lifetime earnings 1 2. 1 3 M argues that the government prioritizes women's health and has allocated 1.6 billion SEK annually for maternity care 1 3. 1 M emphasizes that employers have responsibility for adaptations 1 3. 2 M argues that S has not financed its own proposals in its budget 2. 4 M argues that the criticism falls as long as the proposals are not included in the Social Democratic budget 4. 5 6 S wants to strengthen the pregnancy benefit and introduce new support for risky work environments 5 6. 7 S considers that the government is delaying decisions and that it costs more to let women break down than to implement the investigation's proposals 7. 7 S wants to see workshop in the issue and has included this in its budget motion 7. 4 M argues that it is important to have a secure social insurance system for pregnant women and to invest in women's health 4. 4 M emphasizes that proposals must be carefully considered, not have negative consequences, and be financed 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Mr. Speaker! Arber Gashi has asked me if I and the government intend to present proposals based on the investigation *Ett modernare socialförsäkringsskydd för gravida*. If the answer is yes, Arber Gashi's question is when the Riksdag can expect a government bill. If the answer is no, Arber Gashi's question is why I and the government do not prioritize strengthening the social security system for pregnant women.
In Sweden, women have a high labor force participation, which provides good opportunities for self-sufficiency and economic security in the short and long term. It is therefore essential that women are given good conditions to continue working even during pregnancy.
The employer has a responsibility to make adjustments and also to examine the possibility of reassignments for pregnant women who cannot continue to work with physically demanding tasks or where there are risks in the work environment. The employer also has a responsibility to prevent ill health and long sick leaves.
The report A more modern social insurance protection for pregnant women (SOU 2023:23) contains proposals for extensions of the social insurance protection. Several of the proposals mean that women should be able to receive compensation from the social insurance for a longer period than today. Those proposals may extend the total absence from the labor market rather than strengthening the possibilities to continue working. Other proposals involve cost increases. All proposals are currently being prepared in the Government Offices.
That the social security protection is predictable and secure for pregnant women who, despite interventions, cannot continue to work is a priority for the government. It is also important for equality and for women's health. The government prioritizes women's health, including the health of pregnant women. For 2024 and 2025, the government has allocated 1.6 billion kronor per year to the area of maternity care and women's health.
Arber Gashi (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer.
I have tried to debate this issue with the Minister once before. Now we stand here in the chamber again because I want to ask a simple but decisive question to the Minister for Social Insurance: What is the government waiting for? The investigation *A more modern social insurance protection for pregnant women* has been finished for nearly two years. It is clear, it is well-elaborated, and it is demanded by both the profession and the women who are affected by the issue. But what we are met with from the Minister and the government is silence.
This time, we at least received an answer. What was that answer that the minister just gave? Yes, it was that some of the proposals could mean that women receive compensation from the social insurance for a longer period than today, and that this, in turn, risks extending the absence from the labor market.
Mr. Speaker! I think it is a strange way to look at pregnancy and work. It sounds as if the government believes that women want to be away from work longer than necessary. That is not my view. It is not the picture I get when I meet nursing assistants, preschool teachers, healthcare assistants, bus drivers, or other women in demanding professions. They want to work, and they are proud of their jobs.
They do, however, need a safety net that works when the body says enough. Protecting pregnant women from injuries, ill health, and pressure is not an obstacle to what the Minister many times calls the work line; it should be a condition for a sustainable working life.
The Minister also pointed out that the investigation's proposals would entail cost increases. That is possible, but the question we should ask ourselves in this chamber is what it costs to refrain. What does it cost society when women are pressured to work until they are signed off on sick leave? What does it cost in healthcare costs, in sickness benefits, and in lost work capacity? What does it cost to signal to women that their security is not prioritized? What does it cost the woman herself, Mr. Speaker, when she feels that she is alone, unprotected, and somewhat forgotten just when the support is most important of all?
During a school visit in Halland recently, I met a woman who works as a local caretaker and is 24 weeks pregnant. She had been informed by her manager that there were no lighter work tasks available to take. For example, she could no longer stand on her knees, but she could not be signed off on sick leave either because she was not sufficiently ill. Instead, she is forced to take out parental leave several weeks before the child is even born and thus loses precious time with her child. That is what reality looks like today.
That is why we Social Democrats in our budget motion have proposed a strengthening of the pregnancy allowance. We want to see new forms of compensation for risky work environments. We want women, regardless of profession, to have the right to a social insurance protection that is fair, accurate, and secure. We therefore need to speak plainly.
That the government does not prioritize this is not about not being able to. It is about not wanting to. To postpone the issue by referring to costs or risks for longer leave is to turn a blind eye to what truly costs. It is about women's health, women's trust in the safety system, and women's place in the labor market over time.
I therefore ask the question again, Mr. Speaker: What is the government waiting for?
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Mr. Speaker! A secure and predictable social insurance protection for pregnant women who are working is an important equality issue. The possibility of self-sufficiency should be strong, as well as the possibility of combining work life and family life. It is also important for the gender equality sub-goal regarding equal health.
There are several different measures that can be taken to reduce medical issues and increase equality. Providing conditions for pregnant women to continue working during pregnancy is a high priority. It is therefore important that employers make adjustments to the work for pregnant employees.
It is also important that maternity care and women's health is a priority area, and initiatives have been made in several different stages. The Government is gradually prioritizing safety, and for 2024 and 2025, the Government has allocated 1.6 billion kronor per year to the area of maternity care and women's health.
Another aspect that should be considered in this discussion is the high burden from unpaid home and care work, which can also be a contributing cause to women's high sickness absence, as well as the burden during a pregnancy. Both women and men should have good conditions to share equally in the unpaid home and care work and also in the parental leave. Among other things, in order to promote more equal parenting, the government has recently reformed the parental leave benefit and made it more flexible.
Furthermore, in the budget bills for 2023 and 2024, the government has permanently introduced 16 billion kronor in general government grants to municipalities and regions. In addition to the initiative on women's health and maternity care, these investments can strengthen welfare and improve, not least, the working conditions within these sectors, where many women work and where sick leave is also high.
Arber Gashi (S)
Mr. Speaker! We heard the Minister speak about many important matters, including women's health and the employer's responsibility. She mentioned, among other things, that the employer shall relocate pregnant women, or make adjustments, and prevent risks. That is true and sounds good, but reality does not always look quite like that. It is not so when one works as a nursing assistant in home care and lifts people every day. It is not so when one works in retail and basically stands up for eight hours straight. It is also not so when one works in preschool and must carry children, run after them, and stand on the floor.
In reality, this is roughly what happens when a woman tells her boss that she is in pain because of her pregnancy: The boss says that there is no other job to give her. Försäkringskassan says that she is not sick enough, because pregnancy is not by definition a state of illness. She is forced instead to take out her parental leave to survive financially. Then she loses time with her child when it is finally born.
It is this that we Social Democrats want to change. We have presented clear proposals, including on strengthening the possibility of receiving pregnancy benefit and on introducing a new support for women in risky work environments. We want all pregnant women to have the right to pregnancy benefit during the last week before the expected date of birth and until the actual day of birth without having to present a lot of certificates. We want to create a secure and equal social security system that actually works even for working-class women.
Mr. Speaker! The Minister spoke earlier about the risk that the proposals will prolong absence from the labor market. In that case, we must ask ourselves: From whose perspective? From the pregnant woman's perspective, it is not about leave but about necessary rest in order not to break down. If we are serious about women being able to work longer and being healthy and secure, we must start in reality, not in some spreadsheet.
The Minister mentioned in his answer that the government is investing 1.6 billion in maternity care and women's health. We also heard more proposals. Many of them are good, and we support them. I would, however, like to assert that the one does not have to exclude the other. Women's health does not start at the maternity ward, it starts at work in week 20 or 30 – in the everyday life that shapes the pregnancy.
If we are serious about equality, fine words are not enough. Then we must dare to invest in safety – not just in care when things have gone wrong, but also in support before they do. It is about a safety system that is built for reality, not for the desk.
The situation is also such that fewer and fewer children are being born in Sweden; the birth rate is at historically low levels. When meeting parents of small children today, one must ask what they have to consider before they begin to start a family. We live in an enormous cost crisis. The world, just like Sweden, feels increasingly insecure. Food prices are skyrocketing. Rents continue to increase. Interest rates look set to turn upwards again. Ten years of real wage increases have disappeared. We also have a government that has taken the opportunity to lower taxes for those who have the most instead of securing the finances of families with children.
The incentive to start a family has, in principle, never been weaker. Should this also be an area where the government has ready and clearly delineated proposals on what could be done to improve the conditions for pregnant women, yet still does not dare to pick the low-hanging fruit? The government should be able to deliver here. I think it is unfortunate that we have not received any such clear messages until now.
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Mr. Speaker! Let me be clear: My perspective and my starting point is always the human being – in this case, the pregnant woman. That is precisely why it is important to have a holistic perspective. Certain measures can have undesirable consequences, and therefore it is a matter of having a balanced picture with many different measures to strengthen the whole.
I think it is good that this investigation has been completed; it constitutes a very important knowledge base. The Government is now actively working so that parents shall receive more tools and more room for flexibility in order to be able to combine a high labor market participation with family life. Therefore, it was good that we moved forward with the double days and expanded them, as well as that a possibility was introduced to transfer the parental leave days to another insured person in order to enable this combination and increase flexibility.
The possibility for both parents to be free together with the children early on through the double days implies a shared responsibility which perhaps also means that the parents share the unpaid domestic work to a greater extent. What we know gives this very positive effects on women's health.
The proposals from the investigation would, among other things, mean that more women can receive compensation from the social insurance and that they can receive it for a longer period than today. The investigation's proposals risk, just as I said earlier, increasing women's total absence from the labor market. These are issues that we usually discuss and problematize. We know, of course, that longer absence from the labor market during pregnancy together with a long parental leave, which is more common for women than for men, can have negative effects both for women's labor market situation and for their lifetime earnings, not to mention the pension.
This is a serious problem, and that is why it is important that women are given the conditions to work for as long as possible during pregnancy. If such conditions do not exist, there must be safe and predictable support. However, we must not compensate for employers who do not do what they are actually obligated to do.
A reduction in work capacity due to illness does not give the right to pregnancy benefit; instead, the benefit that is applicable in that case is sickness benefit. There is, however, no clear boundary between reduced work capacity due to illness and reduced work capacity due to pregnancy. There is therefore a problem of demarcation, which is highlighted in the investigation. The investigation has submitted proposals on how this situation could be improved, and it is precisely these proposals that we are now looking at in the Government Offices. It is not entirely simple, however.
Just as the member pointed out, one can observe the following: Politics is about wanting, but also about being able to. It is clear that one can want to strengthen these parts. However, the one who looks at the Social Democrats' budget sees that they cannot do so. They have, in fact, not gone all the way and actually taken responsibility for financing the proposals that the member stands here in the rostrum and speaks so warmly about. Therefore, I must state that the member's criticism of the government for not taking measures to implement the proposals that are on my table and which are currently being prepared falls very flat. The member himself does not have a single krona with him to finance the fantastic strengthening that he speaks of.
We are working on these issues. I see it from a holistic perspective. It is always the human being who stands at the center when I make my assessments.
Arber Gashi (S)
Mr. Speaker! Who stands at the center of Moderate politics can actually be questioned. I believe there are quite a few out there who ask themselves that question when they stand in line at the checkout and are about to pay for their goods. I also believe there were quite a few who asked themselves that question when they opened their pay slips earlier this year and saw that they didn't receive any significant tax cut. Those who earn the best, on the other hand, have probably felt very prioritized when they have seen this government's various proposals.
The investigation has been finished for nearly two years, so one is obviously working with it by stating that it exists. The Minister has done this before as well, so it is nothing new. There are no decisions. There is no bill. There are only delays and defensive speeches.
The Minister mentioned a few facts. Let me mention a few others! Almost half of all women who apply for pregnancy benefit are rejected. One in three is forced to use parental benefit before the child is born. In LO-occupations dominated by women, it is significantly more common for the body to speak up, but the support is lacking.
The government says that the investigation's proposals cost money. Yes, of course they do. But it actually seems to cost more to let women break down, which is what happens today.
We Social Democrats are very clear on this issue. We have wanted to see workshop in this for a long time. That is why we have also included it in our budget motion. However, it is an answer that rarely suits this government. This government often says about proposals that are fully funded that they are just a pretense.
I believe that the person who is the Minister is the one responsible. Do you intend to proceed with these proposals, and when can one expect that to happen? That was the absolute first question I asked when I submitted the interpellation. It would be good if we could get an answer, Mr. Speaker.
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for the interpellation and for what I nevertheless judge to be a productive debate and discussion.
I can state that we both consider it important to have the right support and a secure social security system for pregnant women, that it is important to invest in women's health and in maternity care, and that it is important to strengthen and improve the working environment conditions in the long term for the many women who today have a tough job and where the employers may not always do what we expect of them when it comes to relocation and adaptation so that women can be able to work all the way up until the birth.
I can also state that regardless of which proposals we submit, it is important that they are carefully considered and do not cause more negative consequences than they enrich and are positive.
It is also important that one finances their proposals. One can speak warmly about almost everything and promise everything to everyone, but then it becomes bitter if one has not financed their proposals. The day Arber Gashi has included these changes in the Social Democratic budget, we can talk seriously. But before that, the criticism falls quite flat.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.