Employee rights during the parental leave in Sweden
Note: this post assumes full-time permanent employment.
Notifying the employer
If you’re going on a parental leave and give your employer two months notice, the leave request must be accepted. If you give less notice, it’s up to the employer to decide.
This applies only to plannable parental leave though, which the mother can start taking two months prior to the estimated birth date. She can of course be off work when the birth takes place. The mother's partner has the right to take ten paid days off (they are called just that, tio dagarna) in connection to the birth. They don’t have to be taken all at once or as full days, so you can do e.g. 20 half-days instead.
If you want to come back from the leave earlier than planned, the notice period is one month (or less, but only with the agreement from the employer).
Splitting up the parental leave into 3 chunks during a year is usually fine, but booking more than that might be up to the employer’s approval (check the contract and the collective agreement). After the child turns 18 months old, you can only take time off if you're using your parental benefits. But until the kid is 8 years old, you can also go 25% down of the normal work time with reduction in salary but no obligation to use the parental benefits from Försäkringskassan. This 25% reduction can be used every day of the week or combined to stay home on Fridays, but the exact shape should be discussed with the employer. There's also a protection from unwanted overtime for småbarnsföräldrar (parents to small children).
Ending employment while on parental leave
A person can be fired while on parental leave for the same reasons as when they aren’t (e.g. because of reorganization of the company that led to layoffs). But the notice period will start ticking down from the day when the parental leave was supposed to end.
A worse case is getting fired after you have booked a parental leave but before it has started. In this case, the days of parental leave are counted into the notice period. This is also true for quitting the job yourself.
Protection
It is prohibited to fire somebody because of their pregnancy and/or parental leave, that would be considered discrimination.
Collective agreements also often demand that the employees on parental leave are not excluded from the yearly salary reviews.
When you come back from a parental leave, you’re supposed to get the same position and responsibilities. If the company has reorganized during your absence and is offering you a different position, it might be necessary to involve the trade union in the negotiations.
Links to the laws
Member discussion