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Introduction
Berit Brandth's work focuses on masculinities and femininities in sociology of agriculture and in family sociology. A special focus is on fathers and parental leave. She is currently involved in the research project "New theoretical perspectives on the Nordic model of work-family reconciliation".
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June 1994 - present
Publications
Publications (144)
Artikkelen belyser hvordan landbruket som kontekst påvirker fedrekvotepraksis. Bondeyrket utføres i tilknytning til heimen og har tids- og stedsfleksibilitet, men også lange arbeidsdager hvor bondens tilgjengelighet og erfaringsbaserte kunnskap er viktig for å holde gårdsdriften i gang. I denne konteksten som selvstendig næringsdrivende, er bonden...
COVID-19 and response measures have major economic implications, including for global value chains, and these implications are gendered. Consequently, unlike other chapters that are highly researched, this epilogue is a collective thought piece with our initial thoughts that might form the basis of future research. Large inequalities between women,...
This chapter compares fathers who have been home on leave alone with fathers who took their leave with the mother also at home. The analysis finds distinct differences between the two leave situations and their consequences for the father-child relation, his ability to understand their non-verbal language of and his development into a confident and...
The development of parental leave policies was the most important area of expansion for the Norwegian welfare state in the 1990s. Schemes were extended, and special rights were granted to fathers. This chapter shows how fathers in various male-dominated work organizations relate to the obligation to take leave at a time when the father’s quota was...
This chapter is based on interviews with middle managers in engineering who have used the father’s quota. It explores their experiences with taking leave for their career development. The concepts “availability” and “irreplaceability”, which are often applied in studies of the career logic, are here used to analyze these fathers’ experiences with c...
Research on work-family balance has seen flexible work arrangements as a key solution for reconciling work and family, but it has given contradictory results regarding fathers. This chapter focuses on flexible parental leave use for fathers in Norway. It is based on interviews with 20 fathers who have used the father’s quota flexibly either as part...
Research has documented that fathers in countries with individualized, non-transferable parental leave policies take leave to a greater extent than in other countries. Studies have not, however, explored the processes of constructing these outcomes. We have investigated this issue by means of interviews with middle-class immigrant fathers from vari...
There has been a concern that Norwegian family policies may be problematic for immigrants because such policies carry normative expectations about gender equal divisions of work and care. The study explores how immigrant fathers to Norway frame taking parental leave and practicing childcare. Parental leave for fathers, being rare or non-existent in...
The research question is what fathers do when home on parental leave without the mother. During the period the quota has existed the father's quota has been substantially extended. Based on interviews with fathers, who have used 10 and 12 weeks leave, this article aims to explore how being home alone has impacted their caring practices. When the fa...
This article highlights the importance of social policy and working life contexts for employed fathers’ use of parental leave. It directs attention towards the Norwegian model, which is known for its gender equality aims and welfare-state support to families, but which is also active in the regulation of working life. Based on interviews with fathe...
This chapter focuses on fathers who took parental leave before they were granted earmarked rights. Fathers taking parental leave were rare at that time. The chapter explores how they include caregiving in their construction of masculinity. Using an interactionist perspective, viewing mothers and fathers as negotiating their caregiving roles, we fin...
The chapter directs attention to work-life balance after the leave, asking what consequences the leave experience has for fathers’ work involvement. The fathers describe becoming a father and caring for a one-year old as an emotional and existential experience that have changed them as men. The question posed in the chapter, is what consequences th...
Many of the Nordic countries have designed parental leave policies in ways that can promote participation of fathers in child care. Norway was the first country to introduce a father-specific leave quota in 1993. This quota is non-transferable and generously paid, and Norway has functioned as a sort of laboratory for testing such radical policies....
This concluding chapter discusses the ways in which the parental leave design in terms of the father’s quota may have consequences for change in fatherhood and caregiving and thus for the wider processes of change towards a dual earner/dual carer model. It highlights change in fathers’ sense of entitlement to leave, which has made it into a norm. A...
In most countries, parental leave systems consist of several parts with different lengths for fathers and/or mothers. We compare fathers’ sense of entitlement to two parts of the Norwegian leave policy available to them, namely the individual, non-transferable father’s quota and the shared parental leave. The objective is to gain knowledge of the r...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Norwegian parental leave policy for fathers, the father’s quota, which has reached a mature age of 26 years, asking how gender equality has been affected in working life.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on interviews with 28 fathers who have used the father’s quota, the paper analyzes the conne...
The article is concerned with how hegemonic masculine activities comply with farming fathers’ caregiving to possibly change masculinity and produce gender equality. Based on interviews with farming fathers, several activities with children are narrated as part of their fathering practices, such as hunting, outdoor leisure activities. Being firmly w...
This chapter is about flexibility in the use of Parental Leave. Many countries aiming at greater father involvement in early childcare have introduced flexible leave designs allowing Parental Leave to be taken over an extended period either on a part-time basis or split into shorter blocks. This chapter examines flexible use of the non-transferable...
This chapter is about the design of Parental Leave policy and its relationship to leave-taking by fathers and gender equality more generally. The Nordic countries have historically emphasised gender equality in policymaking and have been in the forefront for introducing policies that encourage mothers and fathers to share responsibility for the car...
Introduction
This chapter deals with fathers’ experiences of using Parental Leave in a flexible way. Flexibility is often lauded in policy documents and research reports as an opportunity for mothers and fathers to control the timing of their leave-taking and as having the potential to increase the use of leave, particularly by fathers. Leave polic...
Introduction
The promotion of gender equality is a major aim behind many Parental Leave systems and an important part of the family policy discourse in all the Nordic countries, namely: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The extensive and well-paid leave rights for both men and women contribute to consistently placing these countries hig...
This volume brings together contributors from 18 countries to provide international perspectives on the politics of parental leave policies in different parts of the world. Initially looking in depth at the politics of care leave policies across Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia, the book moves on to consider a variety of key issues in depth,...
This article explores how farming fathers frame fatherhood according to time-specific ideals. Based on interviews with fathers and their adult sons in Norway, findings show clear differences between the two generations concerning how fathers engage with their children and justify their practices. For the older generation, the major frames are “comp...
This article highlights the importance of social policy and working life contexts for employed fathers’ use of parental leave. It directs attention towards the Norwegian model, which is known for its gender equality aims and welfare-state support to families, but which is also active in the regulation of working life. Based on interviews with fathe...
The Nordic welfare states pioneered parental leave arrangements for fathers and not just mothers to care for their young children at home during their first year of life. The parental leave rights for fathers consist of one part that is family based and one part that is individually given to fathers. The article aims to show how these two types of...
In most countries, parental leave systems consist of several parts with different lengths for fathers and/or mothers. This article compares fathers’ sense of entitlement to two parts of the Norwegian parental leave system that are available to them, namely the individual, non-transferable father’s quota and the shared parental leave. The objective...
This book explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalizing world. It integrates experiences across the globe through the discussion of four key themes in rural gender research: agriculture, international development, gender identities and mobility. The first section (chapters 2-6) examines how mobility affects men and women in rura...
In 1993 Norway was the first country to introduce a parental leave scheme exclusively earmarked for fathers, and some of the other Nordic countries have later followed suit. In the course of the 20 years that Norway has had the father’s quota it has been extended from 4 to 14 weeks and has become a mature system. In this chapter we are concerned wi...
This chapter applies an intergenerational perspective to the study of change and continuity in fathering practices by dealing with the work–family interface of two generations of farm fathers in Norway. Agriculture in Norway, as in many other countries, is typically organized as a family business characterized by the colocation of work and home and...
Parental leave, with a special quota for fathers as its hallmark, is a welfare-state contribution in Norway aimed at mobilizing fathers as carers. Research has documented that individualized, non-transferable parental leave is effective for promoting more gender equal fathering practices in caring and employment. Studies have not, however, explored...
Cet article porte sur ce que font les pères norvégiens en congé parental sans la présence de leur conjointe. La Norvège a instauré un quota de congés dédié aux pères, au sein d’un système de congés parentaux en place depuis 1993. Depuis cette date, ce quota a été étendu de quatre à dix semaines aujourd’hui. À partir d’entretiens auprès de pères qui...
Research on work-family balance has seen flexible work arrangements as a key solution for reconciling work and family, but it has given contradictory results in regard to fathers. This article focuses on flexible parental leave for fathers in Norway, which until now has rarely been studied. Based on interviews with 20 fathers, the article explores...
Based on interviews with fathers who stay home alone on parental leave in Norway, this article explores how the masculine identities of employed fathers may be affected by caring. Research on changing masculinities has been concerned with the reworking of men’s gender identities into caring ones, and this article aims to add empirical knowledge on...
Fatherhood and fathering practices have been surprisingly absent from the literature on rural men and masculinity. This article draws on interviews with two generations of farm fathers in Norway to examine how rural masculinities are constructed through fathering practices. It explores how fathering creates potential for the development of alternat...
The last decade, one major concern in the literature on rural masculinities has been change and variability in masculine practices and discourses. The effects of agricultural crisis and economic change have been studied across a range of settings. In addition, the way rural masculinities intersect with class, age and sexuality has drawn attention t...
This article explores the processes by which gender is given meaning through social interaction in boardrooms. In Norway, alongside mandatory quotas regulating the composition of Public Limited Company boards, voluntary quotas were designed to increase women's membership on the boards of agricultural co-operatives. This radical step to secure a min...
This article draws on interviews with farm women and men who have experienced a family break up to analyse their experiences of gender expectations in family farming, their fear of stigmatisation and their receipt of help from the rural community. The interviews illustrate their compliance with dominant constructions of rural gendered moralities. M...
The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the development of parental leave in the Nordic countries in the last decade or so and explain the different approaches taken by individual countries in this regard. Focusing on recent developments, though mainly on the provision of a father's quota, we discuss whether we are actually witnessing...
Feminisms and Ruralities offers a fascinating new entry point into rural gender research by self-critically examining feminist academics' recognition of, or blindness to, diversity in rural gender relations and the gains realized in the course of time. Captivating, also, is its presentation and discussion of post-feminist approaches that may enable...
The co-location of home and work could enable parents to balance work and family life, but
research has given contradictory results in regard to fathers who work at home. This article explores
how the co-location of home and work in family farming affects fathers’ involvement in childcare.
Interviews were conducted with two generations of fathers i...
This chapter is concerned with two aspects of fathering practices in Norway. First, how they use parental leave, and second, what they do when they are home on leave, ie how they practice childcare. The analysis draws on the concept of ‘fathering practices’ developed from David Morgan’s ‘family practices’. Based on interviews with 30 couples, findi...
Introduction
This chapter deals with fathers’ care practices in relation to parental leave. From an international perspective, Norway and the other Nordic countries offer extensive parental leave schemes to families in order for them to be able to practice parenting in more gender-equal ways. Subsequently, many Nordic studies have provided evidence...
The five Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden -are well known for their extensive welfare system and gender equality which provides both parents with opportunities to earn and care for their children. In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as the UK and the US, demonstrate how modern fath...
Despite the rising divorce rate among farm families in Norway, surprisingly little research has examined these break-ups. Drawing on interviews with farm women whose marital or cohabiting relationships broke down, we explore the contradictions between individualization and the moral responsibility embedded in the patriarchal discourse of the family...
This article is concerned with service work conducted on farms, and it explores how men and women's bodies are involved in producing and mediating positive aspects of the rural. The main question is whether the two types of work, farming and tourist hosting, are represented by compatible or conflicting bodies. The analysis is based on interviews wi...
This article is concerned with service work conducted on farms, and it explores
how men and women’s bodies are involved in producing and mediating positive aspects of the
rural. The main question is whether the two types of work, farming and tourist hosting, are
represented by compatible or conflicting bodies. The analysis is based on interviews wi...
This article explores the third shift of organizing and planning family life in dual-earner families of pre-school children. Generally mothers have been responsible for pulling the strings to adjust all activities in a functioning manner to avoid imbalance between home and work – and at the same time managing gender equality. Here we discuss when a...
Despite an abundant amount of international literature on fatherhood and fathering,
there has been limited research on men’s fathering practices in a rural/agricultural
context. This article deals with two generations of farmers in Norway and their practices
as fathers of young children, and shows how fathering practices have changed from the
1960s...
This article aims to analyse the overlap between work and home in farm tourism.When farmers diversify their production into tourism using their homes as a commercial arena for hosting visitors, new challenges regarding boundaries between private and public, home and work arise. The
article shows how central aspects of hosting involve inherent dilem...