Jenny Julén Votinius
Professor
Normative Distortions in Labour Law : Exploring the Field of Parental Rights in Working Life
Author
Summary, in English
This article identifies, conceptualizes and analyses a normative conflict, embedded in social practises and conceptions on gender in the institutional framework of the market, which underlies labour law regulation as well as legal argumentation regarding working parents. The article evinces and models the basic structure of vital mechanisms operative in weakening parental rights in working life and labour law. The model is fleshed out inductively, using examples from Swedish national law, where the protection of parental rights is fairly strongly formulated, but where, in the same time, the provisions concerning employees’ parenthood have a relatively weak position in the living law. The weakness is explained as a normative incoherence, as expressed in labour law adjudication. In their application, legal provisions to support parental caring and gender equality thus can be forced to give way to encroaching norms based on the value of market efficiency.
Department/s
- Norma Research Programme
- Department of Law
Publishing year
2018-08
Language
English
Pages
493-511
Publication/Series
Social and Legal Studies
Volume
27
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Topic
- Law
Keywords
- Gender
- labour law
- market values
- motherhood
- normative conflict
- parental rights
- Swedish law
Status
Published
Research group
- Norma Research Programme
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0964-6639