A Retrospective of Gross Generalizations… Over the past couple of months, we have traveled to New York, Madrid, Paris and Stockholm. By conducting in-depth interviews with university students and young professionals in each of the countries we travel to, we are learning valuable lessons about how working and living is dealt with differently in each place.
We began our quest in New York City, the capital of a great-many industries and dreams. What we encountered were ambitious men and women who had a startlingly traditional perspective on family life. Budding businessmen were typically looking for stay-at-home wives to raise their children while they pursued grueling careers. Their female peers were either aiming for a big family and a big career (but hadn’t considered how these aspirations would fit together in reality) or were set on staying home with their children. Daycare is the devil, didn’t you know?
We have come to realize that compared to their European peers, Americans are horribly bad at asking for things. They never seem to make any demands for the kind of provisions, like sick leave, vacation and parental leave, that have been taken for granted in Europe for years. But, American young professionals are certainly vocal about one thing: flexibility! When asked what could make an employer attractive to them, the unanimous answer was flexible work hours, and the ability to work from home. Are they actually asking their employers for this? Perhaps not. For many, flexibility still seems to be an unrealized dream.
 In Spain, we were met by a society that appears to be collectively attempting to pull itself up from of its own macho past. With new, and by many considered radical, laws passing to ensure gender equity in the workplace and such novelties as paternity leave, the pressure to change is coming from the top and shooting down into all levels of society. Tradition seems, in many cases, thrown to the wind. We were met with a slew of young people who ruled marriage out altogether. But perhaps of most interest was how success appears to be measured among the Spanish urban youth. They did not want to work endless hours in exchange for endless paychecks—which their American peers appear to do. They all talked about the importance of leisure time and of a “good life,” which often entailed dreaming of being cemented solidly in the middle class as a “funcionario”—civil servant—with stable work hours and employment for life but without the prospect of huge pay increase over time. Stability over mobility, apparently.
 France is funny. In a society with all kinds of public provisions in place to support working families, we were somewhat surprised to find that traditional cultural attitudes are still strong. Women and men are different, point blank. Most Frenchies don’t seem to have any qualms about saying so either. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that men work and women stay at home. No, dual incomes are needed to maintain a Paris lifestyle and Parisians seem to think stay at home wives are a thing of the past. That is not the same as thinking women doing most of the domestic duties is a thing of the past, mind you. But guess what they cited as the ideal childcare arrangement for young children? Public daycare.
And now Sweden. Here we are, in the so called parental paradise where maternity leave is generous and paternity leave is touted as intrinsic to a man’s personal fulfillment. We’re only just starting our interviews here, so we’ll have to hold off on our gross generalizations for a little while longer…
- Astri
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