Flexibelt arbete utifrån ett genusperspektiv : En kvalitativ studie om det flexibla arbetets påverkan på traditionella könsnormer

Sammanfattning: The working life has changed through a new way of working that is more flexible in both spatially and temporally. This flexibility can bring both opportunities and challenges for employees. The essay examines flexible work from a gender perspective with the aim of describing how men and women experience opportunities and challenges within flexible work and analyze if and how these experiences differ between men and women from a work-life-balance perspective, and then analyze whether the flexible work reinforces or challenges traditional gender norms. The following research questions form the basis for fulfilling the purpose of the essay: How do men and women experience opportunities and challenges within flexible work? How does the experience of flexible work differ between men and women from a work-life balance perspective? How does flexible work reinforce/challenge traditional gender norms? The empirical material has been collected through a qualitative research method, where ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with five men and five women from the same organization. The results showed that both women and men generally had a positive attitude towards spatial and temporal flexibility. Women express to a greater extent than men that flexible work enables a satisfactory balance between work and private life. Respondents did not experience that traditional gender norms were reinforced by flexible work in their own organization, rather that flexible work can challenge expectations placed on women and men in various ways. However, most agree that traditional gender norms still exist in society and that they could have been reinforced by flexible work. The result in the essay shows an ambiguity that shows that flexible work in relation to traditional gender norms can be more complex than previously thought.