Barn, hjem, stat

Hvordan reproduktivt arbejde politiseres som verdensskabende i samtidens offentlige danske debat

Resumé

This article examines how the act of having and raising children, also described as reproductive work, is politicised in the current Danish public debate beyond and besides pronatalism. It does so through a literary analysis of two different kinds of texts: The Danish Prime Minister’s New Year’s speeches from 2024 and 2025 and the poetry collection Løven og Klagen (2024) by the Danish author Lea Marie Løppenthin. The analysis is guided by cultural theories of home and by Sara Ahmed’s affect theory. The article argues that in both kinds of texts reproductive work is politicised as world-making based on a cultural idea of children being tied to homemaking through love. However, it also argues that the two kinds of texts carry opposing ideas of the Danish state’s role in this world-making. In the New Year’s speeches, the state is positioned as enabling the creation of a sustainable world, whereas in Løven og Klagen this position is highly contested by an affective alienation to the welfare state. As such, the article concludes that the topic of reproductive work in the current public Danish debate is closely tied to a discussion of the future of the Danish welfare state.

The article’s findings hereby add to existing research on pronatalism, the politicisation of reproduction in media as well as the current state of the Danish welfare state.