ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the characteristics of women’s and men’s employment in Sweden, Norway, and Hungary to investigate the meaning of the “male norm of employment” and to assess some of the tools available for challenging it. Both Norway and Sweden have taken a series of policy initiatives in the last decades which, at different levels, attempt to support women in the labour force and redistribute domestic and reproductive responsibilities as part of this process. This chapter reviews some such initiatives in an attempt to measure the extent of their effectiveness. Reflecting on some apparent limitations of these initiatives to gender equality goals-as well as on some successes-and placing these alongside recent Hungarian initiatives to promote fertility through supporting women’s dual roles, the chapter draws out some conclusions on the contexts of policy processes and the “enabling conditions” for challenging the male norm employment model.
