Negotiating care and career within institutional constraints – work insecurity and gendered ideals of parenthood in Finland

Abstract

Parenthood still bears gendered consequences for the lives of women and men. Individualisation theories explain the different employment and care patterns as resulting from free choices concerning individual lifestyle preferences, while institutional approaches underline the significance of structural or cultural context in creating constraints or possibilities in individuals' lives. In this article, mothers' and fathers' choices concerning care and career are examined in the Finnish context of gender equal family policy and employment flexibility. Two kinds of flexibility are analysed: part-time work, which is rare even for mothers; and temporary work, the use of which is strongly gendered and concerns especially highly educated young women. Analysing 29 qualitative semistructured interviews of Finnish parents, the study shows how mothers' and fathers' diverse preferences are negotiated into choices between structural frames created by labour market instability and cultural conceptions about the division of labour between parents. These choices are negotiated not only with oneself but also in relation to the other parent's preferences and situations. The employment situations and cultural understandings of parenthood intertwine in diverse ways in the parents’ arrangements concerning employment and care, in which the spouses’ relative positions in the labour market prove to be significant.

Les consequences de la parenté dans la vie des femmes et des hommes continue de différer par genre. Les differents schémas d'emploi et de la garde des enfants sont expliquées par les théories d'individualisation comme resultant des choix libres, basées aux préférences individuelles de style de vie. Par contre, les approches institutionnelles soulignent le significance du context structurel ou culturel qui crée des limitations et des possibilités dans la vie des individu(e)s. Dans cet article, les choix concernant le soin et la carrière des mères et des pères sont examinées aussi bien dans le context Finlandais de la politique familiale caractérisée par l'objectif de parité, que dans celui de la flexibilité d'emploi. Deux sortes de flexibilité sont étudiées: le travail à temps partiel, rare même parmi les femmes, et les contrats à durée déterminée dont la prévalence est fortement influencée par le genre et qui concernent notamment les jeunes emploiées avec une éducation supérieure. Basé sur l'analyse de 29 entretiens qualitatifs semi-structurés des parents Finlandais, l'article illustre comment les mères et les pères negotient leur préférances diverses en faisant leurs choix entre les cadres structurels crées par l'instabilité du marché du travail et les conceptions culturelles concernant la division parentale du travail. Ces choix sont negotiées pas seulement avec soi-même mais aussi vis-à-vis des préférences et situations de l'autre parent. Les situations professionnelles et les idées culturelles de parenté se croisent de differentes manières dans les arrangements individuels d'emploi et de responsabilités parentales, dans lesquelles la position relative des époux au marché du travail se révèle importante.

Keywords:

• reconciliation of work and family
• mothers
• fathers
• temporary work
• part-time work

Mots-clés:

• conciliation travail–vie familiale
• mères
• pères
• emploi temporaire
• travail à temps partiel

Acknowledgements

The paper is based on a project entitled ‘The consequences of work insecurity on work–family relations and well-being’, funded by the Academy of Finland. I would like to thank my senior colleagues in the research project Minna Salmi and Johanna Lammi-Taskula, as well as Aino Luotonen, the reviewers and the editors of the special issue for useful comments on earlier versions of the paper.

Notes

1. The part-time parental leave, which can be taken when the child is approximately 4–10 months old, requires both parents to reduce their working hours and to share the care of the child. It has not been popular, around only 0.1% of the parents entitled to it having used this possibility. In addition, parents have a statutory right to reduced working hours – partial home care leave – until the end of the child's second school year, with a very modest allowance paid only for parents of children under three or in first and second grade at school. In 2009, 9995 families received partial home care allowance. It is most usually taken advantage of for not longer than 6 months (Salmi & Lammi-Taskula, 2011).

2. The project ‘The consequences of work insecurity on work–family relations and well-being’, funded by the Academy of Finland during 2008–2012, also included a quantitative and another qualitative study. The qualitative study to which the present paper is based was conducted at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

3. The surveys were carried out as part of two respective studies about family leaves and the reconciliation of family and work by the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), the present National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).