Do Working Mothers Oppress Other Women? The Swedish “Maid Debate” and the Welfare State Politics of Gender Equality

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we use a recent controversy concerning a tax policy designed to facilitate the hiring of housecleaners in Sweden as a case study to reconsider the politics of gender equity in contemporary welfare regimes. We identify a frontier of gender politics that is not captured by current comparative scholarship. As the boundary between family and market changes to accommodate the entry of women into the labor market, who will assume these women’s family‐welfare work? Under what terms should the state or market intervene? While research has focused on one dimension—child care—we follow the Swedish debate to shift attention toward other household labor that has been neglected, both in terms of public policy and scholarly analysis. Swedish and American working women live under two very different welfare regimes, yet they seem to face the same dilemma—either work an oppressive double shift, combining paid employment and unpaid housework, or employ help and expose themselves to the charge that...