In my doctoral dissertation, I examine the issue of the ‘reconciliation of work and family life’ as a problem of changing welfare governance in Finland from the 1980s to the 2000s. Drawing on Foucauldian analytics of government and feminist literature on social and gender equality policies, I analyze the ways in which work/family reconciliation is problematized, and made an object of government in Finland during those years. Furthermore, I examine the ways in which the issue becomes gendered, and the kind of political rationalities and practices of government that are involved in the problematizations. The empirical materials consist of Finnish policy texts and reports on the ‘reconciliation of work and family’, published between 1980 and 2010.

Overall, the purpose of my PhD-project is to contribute to the body of mainstream and feminist social scientific knowledge on welfare states and social policies. On the basis of the empirical analysis, three main topics will be discussed: 1) European governance, and the ways in which European policies are articulated and negotiated in the local contexts of the member states, 2) gender and sexuality as categories organizing social policy, and 3) the economization and marketization of Nordic welfare and gender equality policies.

The dissertation is article-based and consists of articles, which are to be published in Finnish and international peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes (see Publications).

My other research interests include e.g. social politics of fatherhood.