To browse Academia. This work addresses men, intergenerational transmission and social change, within the context of the change in the theorising and politicising of gender relations in the Nordic countries from the s onwards. It adds to the thriving field of qualitative approaches to studying social change, among them intergenerational and longitudinal qualitative research designs, and is part of a more general turn towards temporal and spatial dimensions in social research including studies of men and masculinities.
It is also part of the recent developments in historicising research and researchers. The project aimed at promoting egalitarian family relations through a spousal work-sharing arrangement that involved both spouses working part-time and parental shifts in the home.
In a follow-up study thirty years later, the original participants and a sample of their adult children were interviewed. In the follow-up study, the men were found to have played a key role in initiating the untraditional arrangement in their families. The sons were, however, found to be living in neo-traditional work—family adaptations. The aim of this article is to develop a conceptual framework for addressing intergenerational transmission, historical change and agency.
The framework is employed to analyse the findings from a longitudinal follow-up study over two generations of men, where couples from Norway participated in an experimental research study, the Work-Sharing Couples Project, which aimed to promote egalitarian work—family adaptations in the early s. The original study was based on both spouses working part-time and shift parenting.
The follow-up study concluded that the untraditional work—family arrangement had not been passed on to the sons. The article develops a multidimensional analysis of the work—family adaptations of men in two generations: the untraditional adaptation of fathers in the s; and the neo-traditional adaptations of sons in the s.
