The Swedish welfare state builds on a dual-earner/dual carer model (Gornick & Meyers 2003) where women and men are able to combine work and family life. Recent research studies show that women even in a Nordic context are choosing to “opt-out” of the labour market. In this paper we consider media narratives regarding young women’s views on work and family life. The paper is a pilot study in preparation for a wider project where we aim to analyse whether normative changes in relation to the dual-earner/dual carer model explain young women’s hesitations in regard to combining work and family life. There seems to be a paradoxical development among young women towards an increased hesitance towards work, romanticization of family and traditional femininity and contradictory reproductive choices. These changes challenge the ideal of a dual-earner/dual carer model, and consequently the welfare and social security system built on dual incomes. We research media coverage and social media accounts related to young women’s narratives about “opting-out” and analyse these accounts in relation to norms of economic security, work and family life. We also consider these narratives in relation to normative changes of labour market participation and family life.