Local childcare policy and the changing gender contract
Sihto, T. (2018). Local childcare policy and the changing gender contract. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 38(1/2), 87-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-12-2016-0139
Published in
International Journal of Sociology and Social PolicyAuthors
Date
2018Discipline
YhteiskuntapolitiikkaIkääntymisen ja hoivan tutkimuksen huippuyksikköHyvinvoinnin tutkimuksen yhteisöSocial and Public PolicyCentre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and CareSchool of WellbeingCopyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018. This is a final draft version of an article whose final and definitive form has been published by Emerald Publishing Limited. Published in this repository with the kind permission of the publisher.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes in local childcare policy that have taken place between the years 2008 and 2016 in the city of Jyväskylä, Finland, and to study how the local gender contract for women is being reshaped via these transformations in local policy.
Design/methodology/approach
Case study was applied as a research strategy. Local and national level statistics were used to explore the use of childcare services. Documents regarding the decision-making and administration of childcare in the city were analysed to distinguish the local policy changes during the time period. These documents include city budgets and records from the two municipal boards that have held the administrative responsibility of local childcare policy. The analysis of the data was conducted by using document analysis and feminist content analysis as a methodological framework.
Findings
The results show that the overall development in local childcare policy has been towards cutbacks in childcare services and benefits, and towards the marketisation of childcare services. The city has also implemented new, locally specific childcare policies, which constitute a hybrid form of marketisation and neofamilism. Together these developments are creating a new local gender contract, which goes beyond the past previous traditional or modern models. This new local gender contract for women is defined as that of “entrepreneurial homemaker”.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the research on local social policy by identifying the role of local childcare policy in reshaping the gender contract in a Nordic context. This paper advances the theorisation of the concept of gender contract by introducing the “entrepreneurial homemaker” model of gender contract.
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EmeraldISSN Search the Publication Forum
0144-333XKeywords
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https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/27784495
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