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When Men Stay Home: Household Labor in Female-Led Indian Migrant Families
... The gender of parents and parenting is not decidedly present in Lareau's discussion of parenting. Yet, we know from a host of research on household division of labor that gender is central to parenting work and that the feminine/woman partner often takes on the major share of parenting duties (Banerjee 2015;Hochschild and Machung 2012;Moore 2001;Purkayastha 2004;Risman 1998). Gender becomes even more relevant to explore when the structure of the family is shaped by a breadwinner and stay-at-home parent model, as in the case of the families in my study. ...
... Specifically, stay-at-home mothers are involved in all aspects of their children's lives with little help from their husbands, whereas stay-at-home fathers share transcultural cultivation with their wives equally. In a previous paper (Banerjee 2015), I show that in the families of the nurses, the dependent husbands took on most of the child care duties while the nurse breadwinners still did most of the other housework. Here, I delve more deeply into the nature of the child care and parenting that the dependent fathers do in comparison to dependent mothers. ...
... The dependent husbands took pride in being the main parent but escaped tasks such as cleaning, organizing schedules, and cooking, which were less rewarding. These fathers claimed a fathering identity at the same time that they downplayed their legal dependent status, in part because their role as head of the household had been taken away (Banerjee 2015). However, the mothers, who were also the main breadwip.ners ...
... These key findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns appeared to be a unique catalyst for participants to adjust their roles within their family unit. Although past research has found similar findings when fathers experience job loss (Demantas & Myers, 2015;Sherman, 2009) or are unable to engage in paid work because of their visa status (Banerjee, 2015), the universal nature of the pandemic appears to have made this a unique catalyst for change. Fathers were made to adjust their family roles and responsibilities, as were their partners, and importantly, structures outside of their control like workplaces and education systems had to adapt accordingly. ...
Using interviews with 15 Australian fathers, we explored the impact of having spent time in COVID-19 lockdown on men’s views of their relationship with their children and family–work life balance. All interviewees were married to women and living with their children, most were employed and working full-time. Three themes were identified from the interviews: an ongoing desire to be present as a father, benefits to being present through COVID-19 lockdowns for self as a father and for the children, and conflicting pressures from workplaces and at home which were barriers to being present. Survey data 1 year later revealed that many of these fathers had shifted their work patterns because of their lockdown experience. Shifts in workplace culture and behavior were identified as supporting flexible working arrangements. Despite the immediate challenges of lockdown, it provided the opportunity for some fathers to reevaluate their priorities resulting in long-term changes in working patterns.
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