Navigating parenthood: Policy preferences from pregnancy to postpartum – A three-wave panel study in Sweden

The gender gap in political attitudes is often traced back to parenthood. We study early parenthood to understand how mothers' and fathers' own policy ideas change during pregnancy, childbirth, and thereafter. There are two unique aspects of our study. First, we repeatedly surveyed mothers and fathers during early parenthood (wave 1, N = 2,887). Second, rather than asking respondents to agree or disagree with existing policies, we asked them to formulate their own policy proposal for implementation in Sweden. We use qualitative and quantitative methods to examine these proposals and how they change over time to understand how Swedish mothers and fathers convert their parenthood experiences into political ideas. A first rough quantitative analysis suggests that mothers are more likely to mention healthcare and family policies already during pregnancy, while fathers focus on economic policy and general social benefits. Throughout early parenthood, preferences of both mothers and fathers are mostly stable, except that economic and welfare policy becomes more salient for fathers, particularly postpartum. We are still uncovering the answers' richness to systematically compare the transformation of policy ideas during these important life experiences. Our study's unique longitudinal and qualitative approach offers insights into the development of policy ideas and preferences of parents in the Swedish context. It highlights the importance of considering the temporal dynamics of measures during significant life experiences and reveals that pregnancy and childbirth might trigger different political buttons in mothers and fathers. The results contribute to the discourse on family policy and parental welfare.