Housewives have for a long time been so rare that the national statistics provider in the 1980s stopped counting them, but staying home with the children is now getting popular again.  

Kristeligt Dagblad reports that 21,000 women last year chose to be stay-at-home mothers and not go searching for a job.

Women return to work
Sociologist Jannie Kjær told the newspaper that most women return to work after a few years and only choose to be housewives for a short period because they don't when their kids to spend their early years in an institution.

"Most stay-at-home mothers who I have met have tried an institution, but as mothers they don't feel they are doing the right thing when they leave their child at a nursery," she said.

Rising tendency
It varies from council to council how much housewives receive in benefits, but in Copenhagen parents can get up to 7,000 kroner a month in subsidies if they decide to take care of the child at home.

Nine out of ten children who are more than one year old spend their weekdays in daycare while the parents are working, but Jannie Kjær expects the housewife tendency to continue to rise.