On the work-family balance and gender equality

Sweden had already gone further than many countries have now in relieving working mothers: Children had access to highly subsidized preschools from 12 months and grandparents were offered state-sponsored elderly care. The parent on leave got almost a full salary for a year before returning to a guaranteed job, and both could work six-hour days until children entered school. Female employment rates and birth rates had surged to be among the highest in the developed world.

If you want women to achieve economic and political parity with men and also raise children, you have to create and enforce policies that support such a thing. Otherwise the choice is — as we see in the U.S. — between gender discrimination or low population growth.