Mothers' Housework and Childcare: Growing Similarities or Stable Inequalities?

Abstract

Lately, in Norway, as in many other countries, there has been considerable focus on social inequalities among women. It seems that the level of education is of great significance for women's practices and ideals in many areas. Norwegian time-use studies from 1970, 1980 and 1990 were used to investigate whether level of education affects mothers' priorities regarding housework and childcare and how this changed during the 1970s and 1980s. Also discussed is how differences in terms of housework and childcare time should be assessed and evaluated. During the years in question, there was a clear tendency towards highly educated mothers spending less time on housework than mothers with a lower level of education, but the differences diminished somewhat during the period. In 1970, 1980 and 1990 there was a tendency for well-educated mothers to spend more time on active childcare than mothers with less education. Dissimilarities in this area were rather stable. Concerning total time spent with children, there were minor differences among mothers in relation to level of education in all three years investigated. Hence, it seems that well-educated mothers model their childcare somewhat differently from less-educated mothers in that they spend a larger proportion of their time with their children on active care. There are, then, similarities as well as dissimilarities between mothers in various educational groups regarding the way they shape their parental role, and in the 1970s and 1980s we saw an equalizing trend as well as stable inequalities.