Clinton group touts Swedish childcare model

“They have started to see that female leaders choosing to have children are becoming fewer and fewer,” former Swedish minister for enterprise Maud Olofsson, who heads the council, told Sveriges Television (SVT).

The International Council on Women’s Business Leadership is an international advisory body under the wing of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The group serves the US government concerning major issues and problems in international business and economic policy.

Among the council are representatives who are leaders of American and foreign public and private sector organizations and institutions, and who have an interest in the role of women in international business, economic policy development and global economic growth.

The group has now handed in their first report, which contains a study on the importance of a functioning work-life balance for women, based on the Swedish system on childcare.

At first, the Americans had been reluctant to discuss the work-life balance and the benefits of working child care services:

“But then they started to see that even Hillary Clinton’s close colleagues gave up their jobs as they couldn’t find child care and prioritized their families,” said Olofsson to the broadcaster.

Among their suggestions within the report is that all great agencies such as the UN, the EU and the IMF should demand women’s influence from countries that they award financial support or foreign aid.

“We have many representatives from both the business world as well as the political arena and the idea is that we are to implement our ideas as well, so it is a tough schedule,” Olofsson told SVT.