‘You Can Stand on Your Head and Still End Up with Lower Pay’: Gliding Segregation and Gendered Work Practices in Danish ‘Family-friendly’ Workplaces Helle Holt* and Suzan Lewis This article explores the process of gliding segregation in two Danish workplaces. We address the questions of how and why women and men at the same workplace, with the same levels of education, often end up doing different work tasks. Drawing on a gendered organization perspec- tive and sense of entitlement theory we illustrate the processes whereby structural and cultural expectations place women in predictable and routine work, and men in more developmental work. We also show that the level of education makes a difference to women’s sense of entitle- ment to developmental work, but that the discourse of family friendli- ness disadvantages women in the allocation of interesting and valued work tasks. The findings illustrate the resilience of gendered work prac- tices and the importance of focusing on workplace interactions to explain this. Keywords: gliding segregation, workplace practices, sense of entitlement, gender stereotypes, work-family policies, Denmark Introduction S candinavian societies are known for their commitment to gender equality, which is particularly manifested in statutory policies to support the rec- onciliation of employment and family life. Policies such as generous family related leave, often labelled ‘family friendly, 1 ’ are embedded in welfare states where it is assumed that both women and men will be carers and paid Address for correspondence: *The Danish National Centre of Social Research, Herluf Trolles Gade 11, DK-1052 København K, Denmark; e-mail: hh@sfi.dk Gender, Work and Organization. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2009.00501.x © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd