Chapter 14 - Work-Life Issues for Fathers

Abstract

Research on fatherhood has proliferated in recent years, and much of the attention in the work-family literature is focused on challenges that women face in seeking to balance work and family responsibilities. There are a number of possible reasons for why this is the case. Much of the impetus for addressing work–life issues came from the entry of women into the paid labor force. Whereas men were called to make some adjustments to this, the predominant discourse was about dual-career heterosexual couples and their children, in which men carried on in their paid work and picked up some of the slack at home at their discretion. A second important and related factor was that women entered into the workplace out of a tradition of providing primary care to family members. In this tradition motherhood had primacy over fatherhood, and women were expected to provide care to children, as well as husbands or partners and aging parents. For men, staying in the primary provider role precipitated fewer work and family conflicts, while women struggled more intensely with achieving work–life balance. In spite of these viewpoints, research that examines the prevalence of work–life conflict among women and men indicates that both experience high levels of stress in their efforts to balance their work and family responsibilities. The starting point for this chapter observes the dominant perception of work–life as being more intensely experienced by women, as well as the conceptual understanding of work–life issues as profoundly shaped by a lens informed by women's experience, with important results in discourse and research.