“New Fatherhood” in Practice: Domestic and Parental Work Performed by Men in France and in the Netherlands

Abstract

Housework, a traditional topic in research on women and gender, has only recently begun to be studied from the standpoint of men. This article undertakes a comparison between France and the Netherlands, two countries that largely resemble each other from the standpoint of government intervention and the connections between work and family life, but differ in their stated political priorities regarding women and the structuring of women’s employment. This comparison allows the author to reveal trends in the division of domestic labour between the sexes that hold across the board, regardless of particular cultural differences in representations of the roles of men and women in the family. Based on national survey data on “daily timetables”, the analysis shows changes and continuity in men’s involvement in housework, first as regards the male population as a whole, and then fathers in particular. The study brings out preferences for doing housework rather than parental work among fathers in France but not in the Netherlands. These preferences are linked to a change in social representations of domestic and parental tasks that have assigned new and different values to these tasks depending on whether or not they are performed by men. “New fatherhood” appears in any case to be an image with an ideological function more than a reality in practice, at least when the objective criterion used is the amount of time spent on the daily tasks of domestic life.

Boys Don’t Play with Dolls: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Gender Talk during Picture Book Reading

“…These results are the more compelling because they are found in Dutch-speaking parents. In the Netherlands, gender equality and the participation of women in the labor market are relatively high, and fathers are generally ranked highly on father involvement (Cousins & Ning, 2004;Devreux, 2007). It is common to use neutral pronouns to describe objects, animals, and characters of indiscriminate gender in Dutch as opposed to English, which makes less use of gender-neutral nouns and pronouns when gender is unclear (Audring, 2009).…”

Gender Differences in Child Aggression: Relations With Gender‐Differentiated Parenting and Parents’ Gender‐Role Stereotypes

“…We also found some unexpected results that might be typical for the Dutch sample. The findings that the group of fathers as a whole did not show gender‐differentiated physical control and that a substantial number of fathers had counterstereotypical attitudes about gender roles, might be attributable to the high level of father involvement and participation of mothers in the labor market in the Netherlands (Cousins & Ning, ; Devreux, ). The gender‐equal environment in families with an equal distribution of child‐care and labor tasks may have led to more egalitarian or even counterstereotypical attitudes about gender which in turn influenced fathers’ parenting behavior.…”

“…For example, 80% of Dutch mothers with 3‐ to 5‐year old children are employed (Huerta et al., ) and the Netherlands was ranked seventh on the worldwide gender equality index of 2013 (i.e., reflecting equality in achievement between women and men in reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market; United Nations Development Program, ). Moreover, Dutch fathers are generally ranked high on father involvement due to government‐financed “daddy days” (Cousins & Ning, ; Devreux, ). Partially paid paternity leave (allowing for 26 weeks of leave before the child's eighth birthday) was introduced in the Netherlands in 2001 (Huerta et al., ).…”

Indian Fathers: Family Dynamics and Investment Patterns

“…In North America and Europe, the gap between men's and women's investment in childcare has narrowed (see volume by Lamb, 2010), with wide differences still evident in the area of domestic labour even in societies with liberal social policies (Devreux, 2007). Arguably, with greater access to economic and educational opportunities, minor shifts are also expected to occur in household and childcare responsibilities in families in technologically developing societies such as India (Georgas et al, 2006).…”