How Do Gender Values and Household Practices Cohere? Value–Practice Configurations in a Gender-egalitarian Context

Abstract

Previous research has revealed a paradoxical simultaneity of egalitarian gender values and inegalitarian practices in Europe. The social-democratic welfare states, i.e. the Nordic countries, however, stand out collectively as having the most consistent relationship between egalitarian values and practices. The present article examines the consistencies and inconsistencies between gender values and practices among Norwegian married and cohabiting women and men, focusing particularly on the division of housework and childcare. Drawing on data from the Norwegian Generations and Gender Survey, we identify four distinct types of value–practice relationships in families. Analysis of predicted class membership probabilities reveals that half of our sample belongs to a family type with consistent gender values and household practices, of whom the majority has consistent egalitarian values and egalitarian practices. The other half belongs to a family type with inconsistent value–practice relationships. These are significantly gendered, leading us to recast the so-called paradoxical simultaneity of egalitarian values and inegalitarian practices into a female paradox and the simultaneity of inegalitarian values and egalitarian practices into a male paradox. We attribute the gendered nature of the inconsistencies between values and practices mainly to women's and men's dissimilar perceptions of how everyday household work is apportioned between partners.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for valuable comments and suggestions from Turid Noack, Torbjørn Skardhamar, and participants at the Gender and Partnership Dynamics workshop, Lillehammer, Norway, 2012.

Funding

This work was supported by the Norwegian Research Council and constitutes part of the research project “Gender and Partnership Dynamics” (194222/V20).

Notes

¹ We used a program developed for SAS for Windows (Proc LCA) by the Pennsylvania State University Methodology Centre.

² The percentage of Norwegian fathers who work part-time is trifling (5%–6%).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Randi Kjeldstad

Randi Kjeldstad is a sociologist and a senior researcher at the Research Department, Statistics Norway. Her main expertise covers gender equality and gender research on family, welfare, and labour market issues. She has published a series of articles on these topics nationally and internationally. Kjeldstad is currently conducting a project on gender and partnership dynamics and a comparative project on household affiliation among young adults in Italy and Norway.

Trude Lappegård

Trude Lappegård has a PhD in sociology from University of Oslo (2006). She is working as a senior researcher at the Research Department at Statistics Norway. Her main expertise is on family policy, gender issues, and fertility behaviour. She has been working on a project on gender and partnership dynamics and is currently working on a project on family dynamics, family policy, and fertility choices. She is doing both in-depth analysis on one country and comparative studies across Europe, the US, and Australia.