Collecting multiple perspectives data (e.g. from related individuals) in a qualitative longitudinal design can provide rich understanding of the dynamics at play in complex relational systems, and the different perceptions of people involved. However, such approaches are inherently challenging due to the complexity and volume of data involved. So far, little attention has been paid to the methodological challenges of data analysis in multiple perspectives longitudinal research. This paper contributes to the development of a systematized analysis process for multiple perspectives qualitative longitudinal interviews (MPQLI). We present a framework for handling the complexity and multi-dimensionality of MPQLI, describing discrete steps in such analyses, and related aims and insights. We exemplify the suggested strategies with our own research on the transition to parenthood. The proposed framework can increase both traceability and credibility of analysis of MPQLI, and help to realize the potential of multiple perspectives longitudinal interviews.
Numerous studies have explored parents’ unequal involvement in care work, emphasising the formative power of the first period of parenthood. However, detailed knowledge of how care work is interlinked between parents in everyday practice during the transition to parenthood and how these linkages are related to gendered inequality is limited. Based on an Austrian qualitative longitudinal study with first-time parents (66 individual interviews with 11 couples during pregnancy, 6 and 24 months postpartum), we developed a typology of parental involvement in care that captures the relationality of parents’ practices, their fluidity over time and that embraces six types of interrelated parenting practices. Results show how parental involvement is constituted by a complex interplay and sequence of parenting practices performed by both parents. With regards to gender inequality in care work, we demonstrate that parents are thus situated on a continuum between equality, dichotomy, ambiguity and inequality when doing care work. The results systematise the tremendous variety of parents’ interrelated involvement in care work.
The birth of a child often reinforces an unequal division of employment and care work among heterosexual couples. Parental leave programmes that foster long leaves tend to increase this inequality within couples. However, by investigating a particularly long parental leave system, we show that specific practices enable parents to share care work equally. Our ethnographic study includes interviews with heterosexual couples, observations in prenatal classes and information material available to parents. Specific sets of practices – managing economic security, negotiating employment, sharing information with peers and feeding practices – involved parents who shared care work equally and parents who divided care work unequally. Contingent on specific situated practices, the arrangement of care work shifted in an equal or unequal direction. Even within long parental leaves, equality between parents was facilitated when economic security was provided through means other than income, when work hours were flexible, mothers had a close relationship to work, information on sharing equally was available and children were bottle-fed. Consequently, an equal share of care work is not the effect of solely structural, individual, cultural or normative matters, but of their entanglement in practices.
"Although fathers' involvement in care work has increased, the transition to parenthood still implies a gendered division of labour. In order to gain more knowledge of this ambivalence, we focus on the variability of father involvement at this transition. Based on an Austrian qualitative longitudinal study with couples experiencing the transition to first-time parenthood, we examined how fathers' affective, cognitive and behavioural involvement varies across the transition process. Changes in fathers' involvement culminated at particular points in time, conceptualised as turning points. Results show that the transition to fatherhood is characterised by a variety of prepregnancy, prenatal and postnatal turning points at which father involvement undergoes crucial transformations. Father involvement varies not only between fathers, but also within individual transitions. The study indicates that turning points contribute to the dynamics and fluidity of the transition process." (author's abstract)"Obwohl die väterliche Beteiligung an der Betreuungsarbeit im Steigen begriffen ist, ist der Übergang zur Elternschaft nach wie vor mit einer geschlechtsspezifischen und ungleichen Arbeitsteilung verbunden. Um diese Ambivalenz zu verstehen, konzentrieren wir uns auf die Variabilität väterlicher Beteiligung bei diesem Übergang. Anhand einer österreichischen qualitativen Längsschnittstudie mit Paaren, die das erste Mal Eltern werden, wurde untersucht, wie sich die affektive, kognitive und verhaltensmäßige Beteiligung in diesem Transitionsprozess verändert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Übergang zur Elternschaft sich durch zahlreiche Wendepunkte (turning points) auszeichnet, an denen väterliche Beteiligung eine wesentliche Änderung erfährt. Diese Wendepunkte können vor und während der Schwangerschaft sowie nach der Geburt auftreten. Die Beteiligung variiert nicht nur zwischen Vätern, sondern auch innerhalb individueller Übergänge. Wendepunkte implizieren einen Wechsel in der Arbeitsteilung zwischen Müttern und Vätern und tragen zur Dynamik und Fluidität des Transitionsprozesses bei." (Autorenreferat
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