Institutional Trust: Family Policy and Fertility in Norway

In considering the systemic properties of family policies through the analytical lens of institutional trust, this study brings new insights into the relationship between family policy and fertility. In the Norwegian welfare state, trust in the family policy system permeates young adults’ reasoning about having children: these adults take the family policy system for granted and trust that it will work out, in effect lowering the threshold to entry to parenthood. The data for the analysis come from ninety semi-structured interviews among women and men in working-class and upper middle-class occupations.