TY - JOUR

T1 - Who is cooking dinner?

T2 - changes in the gendering of cooking from 1997 to 2012 in four Nordic countries

AU - Holm, Lotte

AU - Ekström, Marianne Pipping

AU - Hach, Sara

AU - Lund, Thomas Bøker

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - We analyze how the gendered division of cooking activities has changed in Nordic households over the period 1997–2012. Historically, food preparation and household cooking have been assigned to women, and cooking has been linked to female gender roles and identity. However, with women's increasing participation in the workforce, men have increased their contribution to household work and the gendering of food work is changing. Little is known about changes in how household cooking is gendered, and to what degree changes take place only in some population groups or in the wider population. We analyze developments in the gendering of cooking dinners in multi-person households. The analysis is based on two surveys from a project investigating changes in meal patterns in the Nordic countries. Individuals from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden were interviewed in 1997 (n = 4823) and 2012 (n = 8242) based on almost identical questionnaires centering on the previous day’s eating as reported by the individuals: this included foods eaten, the social context of its consumption and details of who had prepared the food. We make use of a sub-sample encompassing respondents from two-adult households who ate dinner at home (n = 1268 in 1997, and n = 2754 in 2012). Our analysis shows that men’s cooking has increased and women’s has decreased over the time period studied. However, the pace of this development has varied within social classes. While especially men from the middle class were already cooking in 1997, the cooking activity among men from the working class and the upper classes increased considerably from 1997 to 2012, so that by 2012, they had caught up with middle-class men.

AB - We analyze how the gendered division of cooking activities has changed in Nordic households over the period 1997–2012. Historically, food preparation and household cooking have been assigned to women, and cooking has been linked to female gender roles and identity. However, with women's increasing participation in the workforce, men have increased their contribution to household work and the gendering of food work is changing. Little is known about changes in how household cooking is gendered, and to what degree changes take place only in some population groups or in the wider population. We analyze developments in the gendering of cooking dinners in multi-person households. The analysis is based on two surveys from a project investigating changes in meal patterns in the Nordic countries. Individuals from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden were interviewed in 1997 (n = 4823) and 2012 (n = 8242) based on almost identical questionnaires centering on the previous day’s eating as reported by the individuals: this included foods eaten, the social context of its consumption and details of who had prepared the food. We make use of a sub-sample encompassing respondents from two-adult households who ate dinner at home (n = 1268 in 1997, and n = 2754 in 2012). Our analysis shows that men’s cooking has increased and women’s has decreased over the time period studied. However, the pace of this development has varied within social classes. While especially men from the middle class were already cooking in 1997, the cooking activity among men from the working class and the upper classes increased considerably from 1997 to 2012, so that by 2012, they had caught up with middle-class men.

U2 - 10.1080/15528014.2015.1088191

DO - 10.1080/15528014.2015.1088191

M3 - Journal article

VL - 18

SP - 589

EP - 610

JO - Food, Culture and Society

JF - Food, Culture and Society

SN - 1528-9796

IS - 4

ER -