A new trend among working women is gaining popularity, especially in northern European countries.

In Sweden, for example, a country known for its human rights, many young women are adopting the trend that has become very popular on social media and is called “soft girl” and which applauds women giving up work and staying at home, be mothers and be housewives and supporting their husbands.

Vilma Larsson, 25, has previously worked in a grocery store, a nursing home and a factory. She quit her job a year ago to become a housewife and says she has never been happier.

“My life is calmer. I don’t fight about everything anymore and I’m not so stressed.”

Her boyfriend works remotely in finance, and while he spends his days on his laptop, she is at the gym, out for coffee or cooking. The couple grew up in small towns in central Sweden, but now travel a lot and spend the winter in Cyprus.

“He gives me a salary every month from the money he makes. If I need more, I’ll ask him for it. Or if I need less, I save the rest,” the young woman explains to the BBC. She now shares her new lifestyle on social media, where she has amassed 11,000 followers. Some of her posts have nearly 400,000 likes, although she says she doesn’t make any money 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.”

The “soft girl” lifestyle has been a micro-trend on social media in various parts of the world since the late 2010s. But in Sweden, the concept’s recent popularity has caused both surprise and division.

Ungdomsbarometern, Sweden’s largest annual survey of young people, has shown a trend in Swedes towards the soft girl lifestyle. Young people, especially those aged 15 to 24, are in favour of it, with 14% of schoolgirls aged 7 to 14 identifying as soft girls.

“It’s a move away from this ‘girl boss’ ideal that we’ve seen for many years, where there are very high demands for success in every aspect of life,” Johanna Göransson, a researcher at Ungdomsbarometern, told the BBC. “There are no official figures on the number of young people who completely abandon their jobs and live off their partners, but it is probably still a relatively small percentage.”