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Hi there, I'm Maddie Savage.

This is Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

And today, we're talking about dads taking time off work to look after their kids.

I live in Sweden, which is celebrating 50 years since it became the first country to introduce paid parental leave that

mothers and fathers could split between them. In this program, we'll hear how the pioneering

policy has impacted families and Swedish business culture. For larger companies, it's probably

easier. But I mean, we've made it work even since I took out my first

parental leave. We were six or seven people in a startup environment. We'll also consider what

other countries might learn from Sweden's experiences, from improving parents' mental health,

to the challenge of shifting gender norms that have been around for centuries.

Despite the possibility of sharing equally, women are still using 70% of the entire leave.

But first, we're travelling back to the 1970s.

A decade when colour TV arrived in Sweden,

Swedish group Abber won the Eurovision song contest,

and tennis star Bjorn Boru became the first Swede to take the men's title at Wimbledon.

Women's rights movements were growing globally, but their ideologies entered mainstream politics more rapidly in Sweden than in many

other countries.

Here's former Swedish Prime Minister, Olofalma, speaking at a party conference in 1972. He promised

his government would prioritise gender equality,

and this set the stage for Sweden's introduction of shared parental leave in 1974.

...