"The primary objective of this paper is to analyse the socio-economic determinants of parental leave in France and Sweden. The study highlights extensive national disparities in the impact of socioeconomic and institutional environments for the use of parental leave. In France, the modest sum of the fixed-rate compensation applied and the weak guarantee of return to employee constitute a major obstacle to fathers applying parental leave and very strongly influence the process for selection of fathers in the system. The conditions for implementing full-time parental education benefits create extensive threshold effects which result in over-representation of « vulnerable » fathers in terms of their situation on the labour market and of their low levels of qualification and salaries. In Sweden, however, the comprehensive guarantee of return to work, combined with a particularly generous compensation income rate ensure that the process of selection of fathers in the system is far less discriminating. A stable employment situation and a high level of training in parents foster greater participation of fathers in parental leave. The Swedish example still indicates that flexibility and the degree of generation of the parental leave systems remain decisive, as the favourable conditions are insufficient to create a more balanced distribution of parental leave within the family."

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