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"A man's job is to earn money; a woman's job is to look after the home and family": Percentage of men aged 20 to 49 agreeing by country. Source. International Social Survey Programme 1994 and 2002.
Source publication
Comparing a cluster of European countries that have recently experienced very low fertility, with other industrialized countries, we hypothesize a connection between fertility behavior and fathers’ increasing participation in unpaid work. Using cross-national time use data we find significant evidence of recent increases in the contribution of youn...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... a similar time period to the identification of delayed and foregone fertil- ity in the very low-fertility countries, attitudinal data have shown some inter- esting suggestive signs of change in gender ideology among men of prime Journal of Family Issues child-raising age. In 1994 and 2002, 1 respondents to the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) were asked to what extent they agreed with the statement "A man's job is to earn money; a woman's job is to look after the home and family." The countries of the very low-fertility group are generally found to be among the most traditional in terms of gender attitudes (e.g., Guo & Gilbert, 2012). However, whereas the percentage of men aged 20 to 49 who agreed with this statement was, as expected, higher in these countries across both survey years, the greatest falls in the percentage agreeing between these years also occurred in the very low-fertility countries ( Figure 2). The period over which these falls occurred is significant. Referring back to Figure 1, the earlier, 1994, ISSP survey took place at a time when TFRs were at their lowest in the very low-fertility group of countries-around 1.2 to 1.3. By 2002, how- ever, fertility was starting to rise again in these countries. Tellingly, over the period between 1994 and 2002, the percentage of men in the very low-fertility countries agreeing with the statement expressing the traditional male bread- winner model fell by nearly 40% on average (in the countries for which infor- mation for both dates was ...
Context 2
... the perspective of identifying a process of social diffusion, the tim- ing of the crossing of the predictions for college-educated, married, employed fathers in the very low-fertility countries with that of their counterparts in the other group of countries is significant. The period during which the predicted time spent in core domestic work and child care by these college-educated fathers in the very low-fertility countries began to exceed that of their coun- terparts in other countries-the mid-to late 1990s-coincides with the big change in gender attitudes among men from the very low-fertility countries shown in the ISSP data over the period 1994 to 2002 (Figure 2). It also coin- cides with the period during which TFRs began to rise again in the very low- fertility countries (Figure ...
Similar publications
With the increase in dual-earner families, men and women struggle with how to achieve a balance between the amount of time they spend in paid labour, and the amount of time spent on child care and domestic work. Research consistently shows that the work-family conflict that may arise from the incompatibility of pressures from the work and family sp...
Citations
... Los estudios sobre masculinidades desde una perspec- tiva de género que se han llevado en los últimos 40 años señalan que la identidad masculina ha atravesado profundas transformaciones relacionadas con la imposición de políticas neoliberales -incorporación de las mujeres al mercado laboral-, acompañada de la presencia de movimientos feministas que han señalado los privilegios masculinos en el ámbito privado y público (Fuller, 2018). De igual manera, se deben resaltar las investigaciones sobre la llamada paternidad involucrada, que pone de manifiesto que la implicación de los padres en el cuidado de sus hijos e hijas, más allá del rol de proveedor económico, ha aumentado en las generaciones más jóvenes y educadas (Gatrell, Burnett, Cooper y Sparrow, 2015;Kaufman y Uhlenberg, 2000;McGill, 2014;Sullivan, Billari y Altintas, 2014). Asimismo, en distintos contextos urbanos, como en el caso de la Ciudad de México, están apareciendo nuevas estrategias en las familias para conciliar la vida laboral y familiar, las cuales intentan confrontar los estereotipos de género, que varían en función de la relación de pareja, la trayectoria y prácticas de paternidad de los hombres (Salguero et al., 2019). ...
... La aparición de la dicotomía padres buenos proveedores/involucrados, popularizada por Kaufman y Uhlenberg (2000), promovió numerosos estudios en los que se analizaba el grado de popularidad de ambos tipos de padres, utilizando para clasificar a los progenitores el grado de implicación laboral (número de horas de trabajo remunerado, salario, etc.) y el grado de implicación en el cuidado de los menores (número de horas, tipo de actividades realizadas, etc.). Los resultados mostraron una prevalencia del padre proveedor, sin embargo, a la vez, un claro giro, entre los progenitores más jóvenes y con mayor nivel educativo, hacia modelos de paternidad más involucradas (Gatrell, Burnett, Cooper y Sparrow, 2015;Kaufman y Uhlenberg, 2000;McGill, 2014;Sullivan, Billari y Altintas, 2014). La dicotomía inicial de Kaufman y Uhlenberg fue sustituida por otras a la luz de nuevas investigaciones que ponían en tela de juicio la utilidad de esta clasificación. ...
Actualmente han ganado visibilidad nuevos discursos que cuestionan los roles de género tradicionales vinculados a la maternidad y a la paternidad. De igual manera, hay un debilitamiento del rol de proveedor económico del padre y una mayor demanda de una paternidad más involucrada y cuidadora para lograr una corresponsabilidad real de los cuidados entre hombres y mujeres. Este trabajo analiza cuáles son las imágenes predominantes de ser padre y ser madre en la sociedad española. Para ello se ha utilizado la Encuesta Social General Española (cis, 2018). Los datos ponen de relieve que la percepción social de los encuestados es que los roles de género tradicionales siguen vigentes en la sociedad: mientras el padre se vincula a un rol de proveedor económico, la madre tiene un perfil más diversificado, pero sigue siendo responsable en mayor medida que su pareja de las tareas más rutinarias. Esta percepción, sin embargo, no está implantada en igual medida en todas las categorías sociales. Los roles tradicionales son más mencionados por las personas menos religiosas, las mujeres y quieres tienen un nivel de estudios e ingresos más altos. Estos resultados sugieren algunas implicaciones políticas que se vinculan a su vez a la demanda social de una mayor corresponsabilidad.
... For mothers, having more children could translate into having increased expenses and financial needs, more family-related responsibilities, and fewer opportunities for professional development. Though, such negative consequences can be mitigated by a more equal division of responsibilities at home, which seems to be occurring more often among highly educated couples (Sullivan et al., 2014). Today, women are often better educated than men (OECD, 2021), and fathers are increasingly involved in childcare (Hobson & Fahlén, 2009). ...
... Today, women are often better educated than men (OECD, 2021), and fathers are increasingly involved in childcare (Hobson & Fahlén, 2009). Highly educated individuals can be considered forerunners in the transition to greater gender equality (Goldscheider et al., 2015), as they often share household responsibilities and childrearing duties more equally, including in the very low fertility countries (Sullivan et al., 2014). ...
Women’s labor force participation has increased in Western countries, but gender gaps remain, especially among parents. Using a novel comparative perspective, we assess women’s and men’s employment trajectories from midlife onward by parity and education. We provide insights into the gendered parenthood-employment gaps examining the long-term implications of parenthood beyond the core childbearing ages by decomposing years lived between ages 40–74, in years of employment, joblessness, and retirement. Using multistate incidence-based life tables, we compare different cultural and institutional contexts: Finland, Italy, and the USA. Our results document large cross-national variation, with education playing a key role. In Finland, the number of years of employment increases with parity for women and men, and the gender gap is small; in the USA, the relationship between parity and years of employment is relatively flat, although a gender gap emerges among those with two or more children; in Italy, the number of years of employment decreases sharply for women as parity increases, while it increases for men. Notably, education has a similar positive impact on years of employment across all groups in Finland. In contrast, in the USA and Italy, the gender gap is only half as large among highly educated mothers as it is among low educated mothers. The employment trajectories of childless women and men differ greatly across countries.
... In response to this literature, other scholars suggest that processes of change in gender roles are rather slow and may be stalling in some Western societies (Hook and Paek 2020;Kan et al. 2022) and that they occur to a differential extent across social classes, as reflected, for example, in variation across groups with and without tertiarylevel education (Cherlin 2016;Goldscheider and Sassler 2018;Miller 2020;Pessin 2018;Sullivan, Billari, and Altintas 2014). Indeed, previous research suggests that educational level is associated with gender egalitarianism and that there may be gender differences in these educational gradients. ...
... In all analyses, the omitted category is couples in which both partners have tertiary-level education. This operational definition is motivated by theoretical literature suggesting that tertiary-level education is a prime factor that differentiates demographic behavior across social groups (e.g., Nitsche et al. 2018;Perelli-Harris et al. 2010;Schwartz and Mare 2005;Sullivan, Billari, and Altintas 2014). ...
... Recent studies indicate that this association has gradually shifted toward dual-earner couples being most likely to enter into parenthood [3,4]. This change is often explained by increasing levels of female labour market participation, decreasing real wages, rising economic insecurity [5,6], changing gender roles [7,8], and the increasing availability of work-family reconciliation policies [9,10]. Whereas the link between couples' division of employment and fertility is well-documented for the majority population, the association has not been studied to the same extent among population subgroups with a migration background. ...
... As labour market uncertainty increased and men's real wages decreased, supporting a family on one income has become increasingly difficult and single-earner couples have become particularly vulnerable to job loss or unstable employment of the main earner [5][6][7]. In addition, the opportunity costs of childbearing for working women have declined as caretaking roles are decreasingly gendered within the household [8] and work-family reconciliation policies have become more widely available [9]. Due to the financial stability provided by the dual breadwinner model and its increasing compatibility with parenthood, having two earners is increasingly regarded as an important precondition to entering parenthood [63]. ...
This study investigates the association between women’s relative employment positions and the transition to parenthood, focusing on women of Maghrebi, Turkish, and Southern European origin in Belgium. Whereas gender specialization is associated with higher chances of entering parenthood in the older literature, the economic preconditions to parenthood have shifted and more recent studies indicate that couples where both partners work are more likely to start a family. However, whereas this shift has been extensively studied among majority populations, we lack insight into whether similar patterns can also be found among population subgroups with a migration background. This paper uses Belgian census data from 2011–2015 to explore how women’s relative employment positions are linked to the likelihood of entering parenthood and whether this association varies by women’s age, generation, and origin of the male partner. The results indicate that couples in which both partners are employed are more likely to enter parenthood regardless of migration background. However, the results for women of Maghrebi or Turkish background suggest that single-earner couples and couples where both partners are unemployed delay entry into parenthood to a similar extent.
... Women have limited access to land, livestock, farm implements, technologies, markets, credit, information and extension services (Ibnouf, 2011;Kassawmar, et al., 2011). This inequality in their access to productive resources hinders their productivity and livelihood choices which exacerbates the financial burden on them and enhances their reliance on men for their productive needs (Sullivan et al., 2014). ...
Women are the most disempowered, experiencing inadequate right to land and decision-making in agricultural production resources. The study analysed barriers in access to productive agricultural resources by women farmers in southeastern zone of Nigeria. Purposive and random sampling methods were used in selecting 500 respondents. Percentages and Likert-scale were used in analysing the data. The results show that women had little access to most vital productive assets in the following proportion 19.8% (land), 35.4% (credit), 33.3 (extension services, 1.9% (tractor) and 1.9% (insurance). Illiteracy (mean score (MS) of 4.62), poor access to credit (MS of 4.20) and lack of government support/incentives (MS of 3.91) were the major militating factors against women farmers' access to these productive resources. The study concluded that women were constrained with many problems in accessing productive resources. It is recommended that land tenure policies to be reviewed to favour women's access, acquisition and use of land while moderating the men's over-hoarding of agricultural productive resources.
... An upcoming strand of literature on male fertility displays a positive relationship with education, where the least educated have the lowest fertility mainly due to their dif culties in union formation (Jalovaara/Fasang 2015;Trimarchi/Van Bavel 2017). More recently, with the onset of the second half of the gender revolution, couples seem to be moving away from specialized roles towards resource pooling, spearheading a fertility increase within somelow fertility settings (Sullivan et al. 2014), and reducing the direct costs of childbearing on their partners who are more likely to be highly educated women. However, this also means increased pressure on men (Huinink/Kohli 2014;McDonald 2000) and may be a contributing factor to high childlessness among highly educated men (Jalovaara/Fasang 2017). ...
This paper reviews research on education and childbearing in Europe over the last decade. Early demographic research attributed declining fertility in advanced economies in the second half of the twentieth century to increasing female educational levels. The twenty-first century has witnessed further increases in educational attainment coupled with trend reversals in fertility. The relationship between education and fertility has become more complex, sparking renewed interest in the interplay between the two life domains. We examine how educational enrolment and attainment influence individuals’ fertility behaviour – both fertility timing and level – and how the relationship between education and fertility is shaped by contextual factors such as family policies, macroeconomic shocks, and normative changes in gender attitudes. We also summarise the recent literature on educational gradients in male fertility and review methodological developments to address issues of self-selection and unmeasured heterogeneity in the study of education and fertility. Finally, this paper identifies and discusses challenges and important areas for future research.
... The proximity of separated parents seems to increase in importance with increased involvement of both parents in the upbringing of shared children (Amato et al., 2009;Dotti Sani & Treas, 2016;Henz, 2017;Sullivan et al., 2014;Westphal et al., 2014). In many western countries, the gender revolution and the increased involvement of women in the labour force resulted in men increasingly spending time caring for their children (Westphal et al., 2014). ...
Geographic distance between a child and their non-resident parent is a key aspect of the reorganization of the family following parental separation. The increasingly equal involvement of both parents in the upbringing of their children is expected to translate into increasing geographic proximity between children and non-resident parents. So far, there has been no evidence about the time trends in geographical distances between minor children and non-resident parents outside of the Swedish context. In this study, we investigate these trends across Belgian separation cohorts from 1992 to 2018 and the extent to which they differ according to parental socioeconomic status and child’s age at separation. Overall, we observed a very small decrease in distance between children and their non-resident fathers and a somewhat larger decrease for non-resident mothers. The distance increased for very young children (0–2 years) and children with low-educated fathers. These findings point to inequalities in certain parent–child dyads.
... Paare mit traditioneller geschlechtsspezifischer Arbeitsteilung haben außerdemgerade in liberalen Länderneine höhere Trennung-und Scheidungswahrscheinlichkeit (Thielemans et al., 2019), mit allen negativen Konsequenzen, die mit einer Trennung oder Scheidung für das Paar und die betroffenen Kinder verbunden sind. Da gerade Mütter nach der Geburt des ersten Kindes bei einer traditionellen Arbeitsteilung deutlich mehr belastet sind als Väter, konnte weiterhin gezeigt werden, dass die Geburt von weiteren Kindern bei traditioneller Arbeitsteilung weniger wahrscheinlich wird (Lappegård & Kornstad, 2020), und dass umgekehrt die Beteiligung der Männer in Ländern mit besonders niedriger Geburtenrate zunimmt, da Frauen offensichtlich nicht mehr bereit sind, die alleinige Last der Kinderpflege zu übernehmen (Sullivan et al., 2014). Nicht zuletzt sollten auch die Vorteile erwähnt werden, die durch eine traditionelle Aufgabenteilung verloren gehen, wie zum Beispiel der positive Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der Kinder, wenn sich beide Eltern um sie kümmern (Keizer et al., 2020). ...
... Numerous studies have explored the relationship between gender (in)egalitarian behaviors (housework and childcare) and fertility preferences (e.g. Mills et al., 2008, Sullivan et al., 2014, Tazi-Preve et al., 2004. Other studies have explored macro-level indicators of gender inequality and fertility preferences (Mills, 2010) or related gender-role attitudes with macro-level fertility (TFR) (Arpino et al., 2015). ...
Under the umbrella of the ‘gender revolution’, scholars have theorized that greater gender-egalitarianism will lead to higher fertility in low-fertility countries, paying particular attention to how men and women perform their roles in the public and the private spheres. This relationship between fertility and gender-role attitudes has been the object of vibrant debates in Europe and other Western societies but less often in other world regions. We used data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) for the four available Latin American countries -Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela- to explore the link between men’s and women’s gender-role attitudes and their fertility ideals. Overall, our results suggest not only that people with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes have a lower ideal number of children than less egalitarian individuals, even when controlling for other sociodemographic and economic factors, but also that, in general, women hold lower fertility ideals than men. These results lead to think that, if taking the gender revolution as a model, Latin America would be experiencing the first stage of the process. Yet, we found evidence for a different pace across Latin American subregions. We also conclude that the analysis is slightly sensitive to the gender-role measures used.
... Another mechanism that may contribute to changes in fathers' domestic time use is diffusion processes. According to diffusion theory, social innovations are first embraced by the highly educated (Sani & Treas, 2016;Sullivan et al., 2014). Time-intensive parenthood norms have been spreading, so expectations about active parental engagement and the stimulation of children's skills are likely to also involve fathers (Sani & Treas, 2016). ...
Father politics belongs to different ‘worlds’, according to Michael Rush. The Nordic ‘world’ has developed better opportunities for fathers’ involvement in unpaid family work than other Western countries, thus lessening the gap between increasing social expectations and fathers’ practices. In recent decades, Norwegian fathers have increased the time they spend on childcare and housework. This article explores the role of fathers’ education in generating this change. Our analysis of four linked time use surveys in 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 showed that the fathers spent more time on both housework and childcare in 2010 than in 1980, even when compositional changes among the fathers, including increased levels of education, were accounted for. This development likely resulted from enabling family policies, generation replacement and changing gender norms. While the total time devoted to housework and childcare increased among the fathers across all educational groups, in 2010 the fathers with a long university education spent the most time on these activities. They also had the highest rate of change, especially in the 2000s, which may indicate a further consolidation of new father practices.
