A Fair Deal? Paid Domestic Labour in Social Democratic Norway

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore some of the paradoxes and ambivalences related to the increase in paid domestic labour in Norway. I focus on the role of employers and their perceptions and experiences of paying others to undertake what has traditionally been perceived of as (gendered) family tasks within the private home. The main question that is examined in this chapter is how employers align this organisation of family life and domestic work with Norwegian cultural ideals of social equality and sameness.