(WO)MEN AT WORK

IN NORWAY, THE WORK CULTURE IS FAMILY-FRIENDLY AND THE FATHERS HAVE A MORE MODERN OUTLOOK THAN ELSEWHERE.

In the morning every minute counts. 6.30: Emilia Thingbo is in the living room putting on her makeup while her two-year-old daughter Sophia is busy painting next to her and daddy is still in the shower. 6.50: Emilia butters bread while Georg feeds Sophia. 7.10: Georg dresses his daughter. Emilia packs Sophia’s bag for kindergarten. 7.25: Father and daughter do battle with Sophias snowsuit. Mother Emilia is ready in high-heeled boots and elegant coat. Mornings for the Thingbo family are planned to the last detail. At precisely half past seven Emilia kisses her daughter: “Bye, see you this evening.” Then she’s off to the office while her husband drops Sophia off at the kindergarten on his way to work. It will be nine hours later before they all see one another again.

A normal routine for a Norwegian family. The exception in Germany is the rule in Scandinavia: young mothers work full time, while fathers lend a hand at home as a matter of course. The number of women in management positions is now among the highest in Europe since a quota system was introduced in 2008. More than 40 percent of supervisory board members at major companies are women, and at the same time Norway has one of the highest birth rates in Europe, averaging 1.78 children for every woman.

The balancing act between family and career works thanks to modern role models and well organized publicly funded child care. Every child from the age of one is legally entitled to a place in a day care center—and that’s not just on paper. In 2008 some 87 percent of all children aged between one and five attended day care or kindergarten. Whereas in Germany there are nursery schools available for fewer than 30 percent of under-threes, and these facilities are frequently only open until early afternoon; in Norway care is more or less comprehensive.

TREND TOWARDS LARGE FAMILIES
Little Sophia has been going to nursery school all day since she was ten months old. Her mother Emilia took the opportunity of her oneyear state-financed maternity leave to write her master’s dissertation in safety management. When Sophia was a year old, Emilia went back to work as a Health, Safety and Environment Advisor with her employer BIS Industrier, a Norwegian subsidiary of Bilfinger Berger. Like most Norwegian women she never considered a life as a housewife, even if managing children and a career is a challenge. With young families in the neighborhood having three or even four children, she can see that for herself: “A woman who has four children and goes to work must be a strong woman.”

FLEXIBLE EMPLOYERS
The men also have to be strong. When Emilia became pregnant, Georg quit his job and went looking for another. “In those days I was working 60 or 70 hours a week,” he says, “I couldn’t imagine keeping that up with a family.” Now he works for a supplier of video conferencing systems and is home by 4.00 pm. Sometimes, when working extra hours, he has Sophia on his lap while talking to customers — by video conference. He has never been criticized for doing so: “Children are part of life.” If Sophia is sick, he and his wife take turns staying home. Each parent can take ten days paid leave a year for such eventualities; the state pays the costs.

Shortly after Emilia arrives at BIS Industrier, she is followed into the building in Sandnes, near Stavanger, by her boss. Kirsti Gerhardsen scarcely has time to enter the open-plan office before she is besieged by colleagues asking questions. As head of “Health, Safety, Environment and Quality,” she is a woman in demand: One department is being audited and needs support, some branch managers have convened in Sandnes for a meeting and want to take the opportunity for a chat with her, a journalist wants to know more about the “Moms” campaign that Kirsti has developed.

Kirsti nevertheless radiates calm and composure. She has now been putting her organizational skills to the test for the past three hours. Up at 5.30, shower, dress and make breakfast. Wake the kids at 6.15, help them get dressed, eat breakfast, make sandwiches, drive sons Brage, 6, and Aksel, 9, to school and drop three-year-old Lykke off at kindergarten, then off to work in rush hour traffic. Not much sleep and a meticulous family schedule are the price she pays for children and a career. When she applied for her management post five years ago, her second son was just one year old and she was in her early 30’s. “During the interview my future boss and I talked about our families. Almost all of us on the management floor have children.”

In Germany, the first questions would have been: “If you work, who looks after the kids? What happens if they’re sick?” But Kirsti’s future boss offered the prospect of flexible working hours and the chance to work from home. Nor was it a problem that Kirsti wanted to finish by 4.00 most afternoons. If there is a parents’ meeting at school or the kindergarten puts on a show during working hours, Kirsti naturally attends. It only works for one reason: “It’s because of the deep feeling of mutual trust that everyone will do his or her job,” Kirsti explains. She herself has noticed how mothers are often particularly efficient at work because they are used to making the most of very little time.

ENGINEER WITH A HALF-DAY JOB
At 1.00 her husband, Johnny Gerhardsen, is waiting outside the school with the minibus. Aksel and Brage come running with a horde of children and bag the best seats in the bus. There’s room for all their friends, because this is the neighborhood after-school run. Johnny loves his job as a civil engineer, but for now he is only working half days. In Norway every child of elementary school age is entitled to afterschool care, but Aksel didn’t want to go. “So Kirsti and I thought maybe one of us should work fewer hours for a while,” Johnny explains, “and I liked the idea.” He needn’t fear that he is gambling with his next promotion. After school, Johnny helps the boys with their homework, cooks dinner and fetches daughter Lykke from kindergarten. When Kirsti comes home at around 4.30, the washing machine is humming and food is on the stove. Thanks to a family-friendly work culture, the whole family sits down to eat together at 5.00.

FAMILY TIME IS IN SHORT SUPPLY
Somehow there still isn’t enough time, Emilia finds. After dinner she sits on the rim of the bathtub while Sophia splashes in the water and Georg lays out a fresh towel. “We just don’t have enough time for each other,” says Emilia. The few hours between work and Sophia’s bedtime are almost all taken up with cooking and eating. When she fetches her daughter from kindergarten, she reads off from a list when the toddler had her diaper changed and how long she slept in the afternoon. Now and again there are meetings with the nursery school staff who tell the parents what their children have been doing all day. Sometimes Emilia feels a pang that she is not there for her daughter. Which is why for the time being she doesn’t want a second child. “Maybe in a few years,” she says, “but for now we want to spend all our energy on Sophia.” Despite excellent child care, modern fathers, family-friendly working hours, combining a family and a full-time job comes at a price.

While Sophia is still in the bath, a few kilometers away little Lykke, just one year older, is asleep on the sofa. While they were cooking, she sat on the counter and told her daddy about her day. But after dinner her eyes grew heavy, the long day at the kindergarten was tiring. Johnny puts her to bed, then settles in front of the fire with the newspaper. The fire radiates contentment. The dishwasher is running. Kirsti sits at the kitchen table and opens her laptop.

Text: Eva Wolfangel, Photo: Antonia Zennaro
Bilfinger Berger Magazine 2/2011