When women defeat barriers in the public - do barriers still remain in the private? A comparative study of the private life of senior managers in county councils, the conditions for being a manager through a gender perspective

Abstract: This thesis is a study of senior manager in county councils with the aim to explore if the life situations at home, systematically differs, depending in whether the manager are a man or a woman. Are women and men managers living in the same family structures and home situations, such as the division of domestic tasks, which let them be managers under equal conditions. My research questions are; 1) Are there differences between the managers’ personal and domestic life depending on whether the managers are a man or a woman? 2) Do the managers studied live within home structures that challenge or conforms the division of labor between the genders in the public/domestic gender order? The study is based on semi-structural interviews with three male and three female managers. The results indicated that there are differences in how male and female managers’ work-life is balanced. The differences found is pointing at the direction that female manager’s live in households where they have equal responsibility for the domestic sphere of the family. The male managers studied live, to a greater extent, in family structures where the responsibilities of taking care of the domestic chores are located on to their wives. The work-life conflict is very present in all managers’ lives. The male managers are living in, to a greater extent than the female managers, family structures that correspond with the public/domestic gender order. Where women are more responsible over the domestic tasks in the household in relation to the male managers.