Childcare policy since the 1970s in the ‘most gender equal country in the world’: A field of controversy and grassroots activism

Abstract

Norway is often presented as a model country when it comes to gender equality, for its achievements in combining high birth rates with a high level of female work participation. This article investigates the relations between gender equality and childcare policy since the 1970s from a grassroots perspective. Generally initiatives in respect of childcare arrangements have come from women’s movements but there have been major disagreements regarding the issue. Publicly funded daycare and a part of the parental leave scheme reserved for fathers are two arrangements that relate childcare to gender equality and that have provoked political controversies between traditional equal value oriented women’s associations, on one hand, and equal rights and women’s liberation organizations, on the other.