(Dominic Ebenbichler/Reuters)
Sweden is no stranger to topping global rankings, whether it's for excellence in raising kids, environmental friendliness, or doing good for others.
The latest: Sweden was recently named the best country in the world for women by BAV Consulting and UPenn's Wharton School of Business.
If you ask Asa Regner, Sweden's minister for gender equality, she'll say the country didn't achieve such a feat by accident. It took decades of advocating on behalf of women's rights and putting systems in place in the federal government to support women in the workplace and in life.
Regner, the minister since 2014, says a few big factors have contributed to the ongoing success.
Individual taxation
If there's a hallmark of the Nordic model of governance, it's income tax. The rates are very high. But Regner says Sweden's success with empowering women may come largely down to how people are taxed.
"A very dry and technical thing is the individual-based taxation," she tells Business Insider. Married couples in Sweden don't file joint tax returns; since 1971, they've filed separately. Regardless of whether you're single or married, individual people receive social security benefits based on their needs, she says, not their family's collective needs.
"We target individuals regardless of gender to take up paid work," Regner says. "And I think that that kind of thinking, and that we did all of that in the seventies and are still very conscious of that, creates a positive cycle that gets politicians to do things."
(Swedish Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 via flickr Creative Commons)
Parental leave
Sweden has the most generous parental leave policy in the world. Parents get 480 days to share — paid out at 80% of their salaries — which they can use until the child turns 8. In addition, fathers get 90 of those days reserved just for them.
The policy has enabled Swedes to cultivate a work-life balance like few other countries can. Families can divide their time between the office and their home with ease, and new mothers in particular enjoy having ample time with their newborns.
A great deal of research says this kind of setup is ideal for bringing women into the workforce.
Often, moms pay a penalty for working. They're either hired less because employers think they'll leave to have kids, or they have trouble keeping their old wages once they come back from maternity leave.
Sweden eliminates those pressures — for both parents, Regner says. Lately, one of her biggest missions has been to increase how much paternity leave dads take. In 2014, they took just 25% of the 480 days, while moms took 75%.