Transforming Gender and Family Relations: How Active Labour Market Policies Shaped the Dual Earner Model

Sweden has gained worldwide reputation for its family friendly policies and the high share of women in paid employment. This book points to the particular importance of early activation policies in the increase of women’s paid employment and in changing gender and family relations. It explores how the activation of women into paid work actually was accomplished: On what ideational grounds, and using what concrete measures, were the conditions created for increasing the employment ratio of women in the 1960s and 1970s? A number of activation measures are analysed in more detail: vocational training, opinion-shaping and persuading activities and the work done by activating inspectors, specially installed to activate housewives into paid labour. The book showcases how early activation policies contributed to the transformation of gender and family relations and thus to a farewell to male breadwinning.