Six different types of parental leave

The Parental Leave Act provides entitlement to several different types of parental leave. These include maternity leave, full time parental leave with or without parental benefit, leave with temporary parental benefit (VAB).

1. Maternity leave (Section 4, Parental Leave Act)
Female employees are entitled to full time leave in connection with the birth of their child for a consecutive period of at least seven weeks before the due date and seven weeks after. Two weeks are compulsory (however it is not necessary to take out parental benefit from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency), which may be taken out before or after the birth. These compulsory days are not extra benefit days but are counted as part of the total number of 390 days. Employees are also entitled to leave to breastfeed the baby.

2. Full parental leave with or without parental benefit (Section 5, Parental Leave Act)
Parents are entitled to full leave of absence to care for their children until the children are 18 months old irrespective of whether they take out parental benefit or not. After the child becomes 18 months old, employees are entitled to full parental leave if they are receiving full parental benefit.

Please note that long term use of parental leave without taking parental benefit could affect your protected sick leave income level.

3. Partial leave with parental benefit (Section 6, Parental Leave Act)
Parents are entitled to cut down their working hours by 75, 50, 25 or 12.5 per cent on the condition that they take out parental benefit to the equivalent degree.

4. Partial leave without parental benefit (Section 7, Parental Leave Act)
It is possible to reduce your working hours by up to 25 per cent irrespective of whether you are taking out parental benefits until the child becomes eight years old or is older but has not yet completed his/her first year at school. In the state sector such leave should be granted up until the end of the school year when the child becomes twelve years of age.

5. Leave with temporary parental benefit (Section 8, Parental Leave Act )
Care of sick children (VAB) is a type of leave that parents are entitled to take out if their children are ill and in some other cases, and then parents receive temporary parental benefit from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency.

6. Leave with childcare allowance, (9 § FLL)
Leave for a parent in the form of a reduction of normal working hours by up to 25 per cent, if the parent has a child with disabilities and is granted childcare allowance through the legislation concerning social insurances.

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