In step with women’s progress in the labour market, the view on distribution of house work has changed, first and foremost within certain social layers.
- The mere fact that conflicts about who should do what within housekeeping are arising, is a sign that current systems are questioned.

Ellinor Platzer says so, and recently defended her thesis Från folkhem till karriärhushåll. Den nya husliga arbetsdelningen (From people’s homes to domestic services. The new work distribution within homes) at the university of Växjö. In the study she deals with the maid-debate that started in Sweden in 1993, comparing it to the discussions in Denmark at the same time. Denmark introduced subsidized household services without really any ideological debate. In Sweden, on the other hand, it immediately became a question about class, as well as a question about gender, and the maid-discussions raged in the media.
Ellinor Platzer has been interested in the causes for this, since it really isn’t a big question for the economy of the society as a whole. She thinks it depends on the way the questions were presented in Sweden. The suggestion came from the national economist Anne-Marie Pålsson, and was presented as profitable for career women. From a socialist point of view, it was rather seen as a woman’s trap and a step backward towards the old class society.

The law about tax reduction when buying household services became operative July 1st 2007. Ellinor Platzer has in her thesis interviewed families that use this possibility, and directed focus particularly on opinions on equality. She has also studied earlier research on distribution of house work, and finds differences in power positions in these families, which also afforded and had the chance to hire house keepers.
- For many women there are no negotiation positions at all. They live in an environment were it is taken for granted that the responsibility for housekeeping belongs to them and their children. But for many of the so-called career women it looks different. They have the possibility to negotiate on somewhat different terms with their husbands, the power balance being more equal and not directly depend economically on the husband. One more explanation is that these women are as much engaged in paid work as their spouses.

When hiring a person to take over the house keeping, it frees up time for the woman, which enables her to compete on more equal terms in the work life. The usefulness of work forces in the homes can in other words from this perspective be seen as promoting equality. On the other hand this doesn’t contribute to changing the men’s responsibility, she emphasizes.
The responsibility still lies with the woman, which is also visible in the families where one has hired someone to take care of house and home. The woman in the family gets a leading position, being the one who recruits, instructs and controls how the work has been done, and is in charge of communicating with the employee. The man’s role and amount of responsibility is unchanged, but both men and women in Ellinor Platzer’s thesis tell about how quarrels and conflicts have decreased, as household work no longer is a big question.