Dual Dynamics of Worktime: Gendered Work–Family Dilemmas of Worktime‐as‐Investment and Worktime‐as‐Agreement

ABSTRACT This article explores the dynamics of worktime and its implications for work–family reconciliation and gender equality. By introducing the concepts of worktime‐as‐investment in contrast to worktime‐as‐agreement , we explore how time and availability for work operate in different types of careers and identify the underlying logics upholding or reducing work–family struggles and gender inequality. Drawing on 63 in‐depth interviews with Norwegian finance professionals, we expose how the different time dynamics impact the strategies employed to manage work and family life in “portfolio careers” and “employee careers”. Further, we explore how these strategies are differently used by men and women, reinforcing gendered career patterns—and how this plays out in a family‐friendly and gender equal welfare state. Theoretically, we contribute to the literature by demonstrating how the dynamic of time‐as‐investment recreates the ideal worker in the form of the ideal “entreployee,” competing as an individual actor, despite being formally an employee. We show how the logic of family‐friendly flexibility presupposes the dynamic of “time‐as‐agreement” and thus align with employee careers. In contrast, the dynamic of “time‐as‐investment,” reinforced by the institutionalized individual competition for responsibility and rewards in portfolio careers, upholds the gendered work–family costs, despite access to family‐friendly flexibility. Addressing these challenges requires a nuanced understanding of how cultural norms and family policies interact with career structures and time dynamics to shape the lived realities of men and women.