Sweden has a global reputation for championing gender equality, so why are young women embracing a social media trend that celebrates quitting work?
Vilma Larsson, 25, previously had jobs in a grocery store, a care home and a factory. But she quit work a year ago to become a stay-at-home-girlfriend, and says she’s never been happier.
“My life is softer. I am not struggling. I am not very stressed.”
Her boyfriend works remotely in finance, and while he spends his days on his laptop, she’s at the gym, out for coffee, or cooking. The couple grew up in small towns in central Sweden, but now travel a lot, and are spending the winter in Cyprus.
“Every month he gives me a salary from his money that he made. But if I need more, I’ll ask him. Or if I need less, I don’t – I just save the rest,” explains Ms Larsson.
She shares her lifestyle on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, where she’s amassed 11,000 followers. Some of her posts have had almost 400,000 likes, although she says she’s not making an income from her content.
She uses the hashtags “hemmaflickvän” and “hemmafru” (Swedish for stay-at-home girlfriend and housewife) and describes herself as a “soft girl” – an identity that embraces a softer, more feminine way of living rather than focussing on a career.
The soft girl lifestyle has been a microtrend on social media in different parts of the world since the late 2010s. But in Sweden – with five decades of policies designed to promote dual income households behind it – the concept’s recent popularity has sparked both surprise and division.
Ungdomsbarometern – Sweden’s largest annual survey of young people – first put the national spotlight on Swedes embracing the soft girl trend a year ago, after it became a popular choice when 15 to 24-year-olds were asked to predict trends for 2024.
Another study released by Ungdomsbaromatern this August suggested it was even becoming an aspiration among younger schoolgirls, with 14% of seven to 14-year-olds identifying as soft girls.
“It’s about leaning away from this ‘girl boss’ ideal that we’ve seen for a lot of years, where there are very, very high demands for success in every aspect of life,” explains Johanna Göransson, a researcher for Ungdomsbarometern.
There is no official data on the number of young “soft girls” quitting work altogether and living off their partners like Ms Larsson, and Ms Göransson says it is likely to be a small proportion.
But it’s nevertheless become a major talking point in Sweden, from opinion pieces in broadsheet newspapers, to panel discussions at Almedalen – a huge annual cross-party political event – and on Swedish public service television.
Gudrun Schyman – the co-founder and former leader of Sweden’s feminist party Feministiskt initiativ – says she’s taken part in recent debates on the issue. She believes women living off their partners wealth is “very dangerous”, and “a step backwards” for gender equality.
Ms Schyman argues that young Swedes have been influenced by the country’s right-wing coalition government, which collaborates with the nationalist Sweden Democrats party, as well as the “broader development” of populism in Europe and the United States.
She also thinks there’s a lack of awareness about life in Sweden before it embraced policies designed to promote gender equality, such as heavily subsidised childcare and shared parental leave. “Young women today don’t carry the history of how women had to fight for their rights – the right to work, the right to have a salary, and the right to economic independence.”
At the other end of the political spectrum, the Sweden Democrats party has been positive towards the soft girls trend.
“I think that people should get to decide over their own life,” says Denice Westerberg, national spokesperson for the party’s youth wing. “And if you have that economic possibility to do that [live off a partner] then good for you.
“We still live in a country with all the opportunities to have a career. We still have all the rights, but we have the right to choose to live more traditionally.”
Aside from ideological debates, discussions have focussed on the social and cultural factors that could be influencing young women to quit work – or at least aspire to a softer lifestyle.
Sweden has a reputation for work life balance – most employees get six-weeks holiday a year, and less than 1% work more than 50 hours a week.
Still, Ungdomsbaromatern’s research suggests rising stress levels amongst young people, and Ms Göransson believes soft girls trend may be an extension of recent global work trends such as “quiet quitting”, which encourages employees not to overextend themselves.
Meanwhile, the Generation Z age group (the cohort born between 1997 and 2012) are making, and being influenced by, social media content that celebrates leisure time rather than career goals.
“Work doesn’t really feature that much if you look at lifestyle content on social media today, it’s much more about exercise and wellness,” explains Ms Göransson. “And if that’s the picture young people have of what a normal life looks like, then, of course, maybe you’re not so excited about spending eight hours in an office a day.”
But perhaps the biggest talking point is whether the trend is a response to the limitations of Sweden’s pioneering gender equality policies.
Alongside Slovenia, Sweden has the highest proportion of working mothers in Europe, yet government statistics suggest women in heterosexual couples still do a larger share of housework and childcare than men.
They also take 70% of state-funded parental leave, and are more likely to go on sick leave for stress. Meanwhile, although the income gap between men and women remains lower than the EU average of 12.7%, it has stalled at around 10% since 2019.
Ms Larsson – who wants to have children in the future – says her decision to become a stay-at-home girlfriend is partly due to watching older women struggle to juggle a career and homelife.
“I think a lot of women feel burned out from their work,” she says. “And I just think of my mother and her mother, my grandma, and my sister, everyone. They’re always so stressed.”
At Sweden’s state-funded Gender Equality Agency, Peter Wickström, head of the department for policy analysis and monitoring, also believes the soft girl trend can be viewed as a “rational reaction” to the perceived “demands” experienced by young women.
Shoka Åhrman, an economist at one of Sweden’s largest pension funds, SPP, says she does not believe enough Swedish girlfriends or wives will quit work for it to have an impact on the country’s economy.
However, she is working to raise awareness amongst Swedish women that leaving the labour force (as well as going part time) could impact their personal finances, from savings and pensions, to salary levels if they return to work.
Ms Åhrman hopes the current soft girl debates will serve as a wake-up call to both politicians and businesses alike that there is still work to be done to address ongoing structural inequalities in Sweden.
“I think the source of it, which is mental health issues, burnouts and all that, is what’s more worrying, because that affects not only the few younger girls today that want to stay home as soft girls,” she says.
BBC
