Fathers' employment in a father-friendly welfare state: does fatherhood affect men's working hours?

Abstract

An important aim of Norwegian workÁfamily policies is to enhance the family role of fathers. Time-use surveys show a slight increase in fathers' family work, but we still know little about the relationship between men's family circumstances and working hours. On the one hand, policy measures encourage the greater involvement of fathers in family life. On the other hand, men are the main providers in most couples and employment and breadwinning are still important components of men's fathering identity. In this paper, we examine the relationship between fatherhood and working time, with a particular focus on the possible effects of the number and ages of children. Utilizing the Norwegian Labour Force Survey 2005, we find that men's contractual working hours are not significantly affected by their parental status, but men do curtail their actual working hours when they have young children, and particularly if there is only one child in the household. However, men with school-aged children actually work longer hours than non-fathers and men with young children.Un objectif important des politiques de conciliation entre vie professionnelle et vie familiale est de renforcer le rôle du père au sein de la famille. Des eunquêtes sur l'emploi du temps indiquent une légère augmentation du travail des pères dans la famille, mais nous ne savons encore que peu de choses sur la relation entre la situation familiale des hommes et le temps de travail. D'une part, les mesures politiques favorisent un engagement plus important des pères dans la vie familiale. D'autre part, les hommes apportent le salaire principal dans la plupart des ménages et le fait d'avoir un emploi et de nourrir les siens constitue encore un élément important de l'identité paternelle. A l'heure actuelle, nous étudions la relation entre la paternité et le temps de travail, en nous concentrant particulièrement sur les effets éventuels du nombre et de l'âge des enfants. En nous appuyant sur l'Enquête sur la main-d'oeuvre de 2005 en Norvège, nous constatons que le temps de travail contractuel des hommes n'est pas significativement affecté par leur status parental, mais les hommes ayant des enfants en bas âge réduisent leur temps de travail effectif, en particulier si le ménage n'a qu'un enfant. Cependant, les hommes qui ont des enfants en âge d'aller à l'école travaillent en réalité plus longtemps que ceux qui n'ont pas d'enfant ou qui ont des enfants en bas âge.

Uk Fathers' long work hours: Career stage or Fatherhood?

“…Nonetheless, running a series of analyses to account for the heterogeneity in both working hours, contract type and fatherhood circumstance would be warranted. For example, a similar study by Dommermuth and Kitterød (2009) on Norwegian fathers separated fathers into groups according to child number and child age, but omitted to include step-fathers in the analysis. Maintaining definition and variable consistency across analyses of different datasets remains a challenge, but would be most achievable through the use of LFS datasets, which are most likely to be similarly designed for international comparison.…”

Part-Time Work in the Nordic Region II

“…Men's part-time work is mostly addressed -when addressed at all -in addition to, as a contrast to or as a complement to women's part-time work. An example of this is discussions on men's work time choices in relation to the so-called father's quota (Dommermuth and Kitterød 2009). While recognising the need for more knowledge about men's participation in the labour market (we will come back to this later), we have simply reasoned that our assignment to produce this report primarily concerns women's part-time work since:…”

Gender, work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

“…Some US and UK studies find that fatherhood increases men's work hours (Biggart & O'Brien, 2010;Eggebeen & Knoester, 2001;Knoester & Eggebeen, 2006) though this effect is not as strong in Sweden (Boje, 2006). On the other hand, some studies in the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States suggest that fathers may reduce their work hours (Astone et al, 2010;Dommermuth & Kitteröd, 2009;Koslowski, 2011). Yet, other studies in the USA, the UK and West Germany find that men's working hours are unrelated to fatherhood (Dermott, 2006;Kuhhirt, 2012;Maume, 2006).…”

“…The potential effect of parenthood on men's work efforts has received growing attention in the last several years though findings are more mixed, with some studies showing a positive relationship between fatherhood and work hours (Astone, Dariotis, Sonenstein, Pleck, & Hynes, 2010;Knoester & Eggebeen, 2006), some studies showing that fatherhood decreases work efforts (Astone et al 2010;Dommermuth & Kitteröd, 2009), and others showing no effect of fatherhood on work hours (Dermott, 2006). Furthermore, gender role attitudes may complicate the relationship between parenthood and work patterns.…”