Doing Fatherhood: Understanding the Gendered Use of Parental Leave in Finland

Abstract

In families with young children, parental practices are usually gendered: mothers do more unpaid care work, while fathers spend more time in paid employment. Recent efforts in the Nordic countries to promote equal sharing of childcare responsibility between parents have resulted in increases of fathers’ take-up of parental leave. Fathers in Finland are less likely to take leaves when compared to fathers in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. Using survey data collected in 2001 from 1371 fathers who had children born in 1999, the take-up of parental leave by fathers in heterosexual families in Finland was analysed. The parents’ reports suggested that the division of labour in families was negotiated between socio-economic rationality and prevailing ideologies of motherhood, fatherhood, and gender equality. Two aspects were significant for the likelihood of fathers’ sharing parental leave with mothers: the mother’s position in the labour market and gender ideology related to care and breadwinning responsibilities.