Academics in Norway don’t have it much better. University contracts are all time limited which makes getting a mortgage very difficult and rental accommodation is either ridiculously expensive or would be condemned in a real country. Norway’s one of those places where if you fit into the system, life is good. But if you don’t, it’s really hard.
Academics have a really hard time with it because society is designed around 2 parent families where both parent works a normal job with normal hours. If you have kids and your experiment needs to run until 17:00, you’re going to have to find someone to finish it for you because daycare, while affordable and means tested, closes at 16:30. If you need to rent, expect to pay about half your income for a shitty converted storage cellar in someone’s house. If you go on parental leave and it ends after your standard 2 year academic contract is up, you won’t have a job to go back to (the universities offer 2 year contracts because by Norwegian law anyone working the same job for 3 years has to be given a permanent contract so they rehire their staff every 2 years).
Daycare close at 16:30 in Norway‽ How can any parents find time for that?
In Sweden in my city all daycares run by the municipality are open at least between 06:30 and 18:30. They can close earlier if no parents need it to be open later. Private daycares probably have similar times.
It’s probably open later in Oslo or something but yes 7:30 to 16:30 where I live. They started reducing hours during the pandemic and then just didn’t expand them again and hoped no one would notice. It was at least open til 17:00 before that.
Academics in Norway don’t have it much better. University contracts are all time limited which makes getting a mortgage very difficult and rental accommodation is either ridiculously expensive or would be condemned in a real country. Norway’s one of those places where if you fit into the system, life is good. But if you don’t, it’s really hard.
Academics have a really hard time with it because society is designed around 2 parent families where both parent works a normal job with normal hours. If you have kids and your experiment needs to run until 17:00, you’re going to have to find someone to finish it for you because daycare, while affordable and means tested, closes at 16:30. If you need to rent, expect to pay about half your income for a shitty converted storage cellar in someone’s house. If you go on parental leave and it ends after your standard 2 year academic contract is up, you won’t have a job to go back to (the universities offer 2 year contracts because by Norwegian law anyone working the same job for 3 years has to be given a permanent contract so they rehire their staff every 2 years).
Daycare close at 16:30 in Norway‽ How can any parents find time for that?
In Sweden in my city all daycares run by the municipality are open at least between 06:30 and 18:30. They can close earlier if no parents need it to be open later. Private daycares probably have similar times.
It’s probably open later in Oslo or something but yes 7:30 to 16:30 where I live. They started reducing hours during the pandemic and then just didn’t expand them again and hoped no one would notice. It was at least open til 17:00 before that.