Motherhood 2.0: Slow Progress for Career Women and Motherhood within the ‘Finnish Dream’

Abstract

This article investigates the gendered dynamics of motherhood and careers, as voiced by professionals in the knowledge-intensive business sector in Finland. It is informed by the CIAR method through 81 iterative, in-depth interviews with 23 women and 19 men. Among the women respondents with no children, one child, or two children, three dominant forms of discursive talk emerge: ‘It takes two to tango’, ‘It’s all about time management’ and ‘Good motherhood 2.0’. Though Finland provides a seemingly egalitarian Nordic welfare state context, with the ‘Finnish Dream’, women face contradictions between expectations of women as full-time ideal workers pursuing masculinist careers and continuing responsibilities at home, performing ‘good motherhood’. The women’s double strivings meet the double constraining demands of these ideals. The gendered pressures are imposed on the women by themselves, male colleagues, the organisation more broadly and society, leading the women to enact a form of ‘bounded individualism’.

Doing “gendered exit”: Work, care and the moral practices of disabled persons

“…When asked about the difference if any between voluntary work and their previous jobs, a participant remarked, “If it's work, it's pretty much only about earning some money. But being a volunteer gives me a feeling of solidarity and warmness.” Previous research points to the forces in the workplace that occlude questions of gender inequality in formulations that antagonize as trade‐off's the female's achievements in their careers on the one hand and the make‐up of their relationships of care on the other (Niemistö et al., 2021). While our observations supplement critiques of this nature, we also see that these naturalizing discourses might present vehicles of appropriation for disadvantaged identities.…”

Does Overwork Attenuate the Motherhood Earnings Penalty among Full-Time Workers?

“…As mothers’ time commitment to work is still limited by their disproportionate share of housework and childcare responsibilities (Bianchi and Milkie, 2010), however, it would be too simplistic to conclude that working long hours would be beneficial for mothers in overcoming mother-specific disadvantages at the workplace. Indeed, as overworkers are expected to be unconstrained by domestic tasks, overwork can attenuate the benefits of workplace family-friendly policies for facilitating mothers’ employment and reinforce workplace expectations and practices that pose challenges to mothers’ careers (Lindsay and Maher, 2014; Niemistö et al, 2021; Stone, 2007; Wright, 2014). As working long hours is at best limited to those who can pay its severe cost on family life and well-being (Bianchi and Milkie, 2010; Voydanoff, 2004), I call attention to the broader implications of long work hours in mothers’ disadvantages at work.…”

Shaped by resistance: Discursive politics in gender equality work

“…This reflects educational systems that continue to build on essentialist ideas of different qualities of women and men (cf., Breda et al., 2020). Women are disproportionately occupied in low paid public sector occupations (Koskinen Sandberg, 2018; Melby et al., 2008) and engaged in unpaid care work even when pursuing professional careers (Niemistö et al., 2021). Corporate top management, in contrast, remains a male bastion (Holgersson, 2013).…”