Randi Kjeldstad

Welfare rules, business cycles, and employment dynamics among lone parents in Norway

How lone parents combine work and welfare in earning a living has long inspired discussion. Yet little is known of their actual labor market attachment, either over calendar time or during individual lifetimes. In this article we address both issues, first by studying Norwegian Labor Force Surveys to illuminate the labor force participation of lone parents during the last two decades and by comparing the trends revealed with similar developments among married and cohabiting parents. Next, we analyze individual labor market transitions, using longitudinal data from administrative registers. The analyses demonstrate large differences in the labor market behaviors of single and nonsingle parents in Norway, even when controlling for differences in human capital and care responsibilities. Shifting labor demand and welfare reforms that prioritize paid work have both affected the employment of lone parents, but favorable economic conditions seem to have played a larger role than stringent social policies in increasing their employment activity.

Underemployment in a gender segregated labour market

This article analyses factors behind underemployment in Norway, with a focus on gender. The analysis, based on Labour Force Survey data, shows that economic fluctuations during the latest decade and a half have brought about changing underemployment levels among both women and men. The Norwegian labour market is strongly gender segregated and the processes and characteristics of underemployment differ between male- and female-dominated labour market sectors. The former sectors are generally more sensitive to economic fluctuations than the latter. It is indicated that underemployed men are predominantly temporarily expelled on a part-time basis from their jobs, while women are to a larger extent permanently excluded from longer working-hour contracts in their jobs.

How do gender values and household practices cohere? Value-practice configurations in a gender egalitarian context

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 womens and mens dissimilar perceptions of how everyday household work is apportioned between partners.