Armi Mustosmäki

Currently I am working as academy research fellow in my project “Smart women love money- Reconfigurations of femininity and motherhood in financialised welfare state” funded by the Finnish research council (2023-2027). This project focuses on the proliferation of financial self-help in social media that invites women to save and invest to the financial markets to fight economic gender inequality. The interest is to study how ideas and ideals on femininity, motherhood and intimate relations that are reconstructed and mediated through social media and how are these ideals received, lived, negotiated or resisted in lives of (non)investing women. The project is inspired by economic sociology, feminist media and cultural studies and critical social policy with the aim of understanding welfare state change.

Prior to joining UeF, I worked at the University of Jyväskylä in various research and teaching positions (Senior lecturer in Social and public policy, Lecturer in qualitative methods). My postdoctoral project “Complaining mothers: Affect, moral and politics of medicalisation” (2019-2023) was funded by Kone foundation and explored difficult and forbidden emotions of mothers, especially regretting motherhood as well as public response to ‘maternal complaint’ with tools provided by affect studies.

I have also participated in several projects and studied e.g. Nordic corporatism and gender equality policies, changing organisation of work in public and private sector organisations, lean management, and reconciliation of work and family. My PhD dissertation “How bright are the Nordic lights?” (2017) examined the question on the existence and persistence of the Nordic working life model by studying job quality trends in Nordic countries in a comparative perspective, drawing from institutional and labour process theories and large survey datasets. More information on publications and projects related to work life change you can find on my personal webpage.