Public healthcare is already suffering from a shortage of staff, and as the population gets older, the need for eldercare gets greater every year. As a part of solving this problem, public employers have given all of their employees the ‘right to full-time work’, as many workers in Swedish eldercare work part-time. Despite this opportunity, a lot of female employees still choose to work part-time. With qualitative interviews, focusing on the stories of female workers, we aim to increase the understanding of female part-time work in Swedish elderly care. The analysis puts weight on norms, barriers, opportunities, and preferences, as all playing a part in female workers attitudes and choices related to part-time work.

Our essential conclusions are that the ‘part-time norm’ is reproduced within and outside the elderly care, as it is both workplace-specific and linked to societal norms. At the same time, the female workers show variation in their individual preferences when it comes to work-life balance, which seems to be related to the choices and attitudes towards part-time work. However, several of the female employees find that the work in elderly care makes it difficult to achieve their preferred work-life balance, and to them, part-time work is a solution to this problem. The actions of women are conditioned by the structures they have to relate to. Based on this, they do their best to live up to both the expectations that exist on them, but also to achieve their preferred lifestyles.