Sweden’s PM puts IVF at centre of re-election bid amid record low birthrate

The health minister, Elisabet Lann of the Christian Democrats, which is also in favour of extending IVF to siblings, said: “We want to give more people the possibility to fulfil their family dreams and wishes to become parents. One in six couples in Sweden are involuntarily child-free. It affects their quality of life, social life, mental health and their whole existence is characterised by their longing to start a family.”

Opposition party the Social Democrats, Sweden’s largest party, said more help is needed for those who want to have children, but warned against IVF for siblings being used as “short term political moves” or of offering “false hope”.

Fredrik Lundh Sammeli, the Social Democrats’ social political spokesperson, said: “The issue of demographics and sinking birthrate is an important issue for politics. We need to build a society where people feel optimistic and belief in the future and where the public sector also removes obstacles for people who want to have children.”

But some experts are not convinced that this IVF strategy will have the desired effect to the population or to voter intention.

Martin Kolk, a sociologist and lecturer at Stockholm University, said that in Sweden – which has generous parental leave and where childcare is heavily subsidised – the reason for people having fewer children is more likely to be cultural change. Becoming a parent, he said, is seen by some to be “competing with other lifestyles”. He said:“That other aspects of life, so career, hobbies, friends, self-fulfilment, play a little bigger role in life, and then perhaps family building and childbirth plays a little smaller role.”

Helena Olofsdotter Stensöta, a political science professor at the University of Gothenburg, said that, while their election pledge sends a “symbolic sign that the Moderates are thinking about women”, it is unlikely to have much material impact on the relatively well-off groups that the party tends to appeal to. “Moderate voters are mostly men. If only women had voted in the last election, we would have a red [Social Democrat-led] government.”

What will be more important, she said, is whether coalition partners the Liberals get enough votes to get above the 4% threshold needed to remain in parliament. And, so far, Moderate and Sweden Democrat voters “have not shown any big interest in saving the Liberals, which is also rooted in them competing between themselves for the position of prime minister”.