Abstract
AbstractObjectiveThis study examines whether paternal part‐time employment is related to greater involvement by fathers in child care and housework, both while fathers are working part‐time and after they return to full‐time employment.BackgroundThe study draws on four strands of theory—time availability, bargaining, gender ideology, and gender construction. It studies couples' division of labor in Germany, where policies increasingly support a dual‐earner, dual‐carer model.MethodThe study uses data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel from 1991 to 2015 on employed adult fathers living together with at least one child younger than age 17 and the mother. The analytic sample comprises 51,230 observations on 8,915 fathers. Fixed effects regression techniques are used to estimate the effect of (previous) part‐time employment on fathers' child‐care hours, housework hours, and share of child care and housework.ResultsFathers did more child care and housework while they worked part time. Yet, most fathers reverted to previous levels of involvement after returning to full‐time work. The only exception was fathers with partners in full‐time employment, who spent more time doing child care and took on a greater share of housework after part‐time employment than before.ConclusionThe findings are largely consistent with the time availability perspective, although the results for fathers with full‐time employed partners indicate that the relative resources and gender ideology perspectives have some explanatory power as well.
Highlights
The meaning of fatherhood has changed in recent decades
Of the fathers who had worked part time, 64% (n = 488) had returned to a full-time position by the end of the observation period, and among them, the median length of part-time employment was 12 months. This shows that part-time employment is often an intermediary episode for fathers
Part-time employment is primarily used by mothers to reconcile work and family (Blossfeld & Hakim, 1997; Fagan & Walthery, 2007; Hipp et al, 2015), an increasing minority of fathers work part-time at least once during the childrearing years
Summary
The meaning of fatherhood has changed in recent decades. Fathers today want to be breadwinners and caregivers who provide emotional support, time, care, and affection to their children (Palkovitz, 2012). Male support for the male breadwinner model has declined considerably in industrialized countries since the 1980s, and by 2002, the majority of European men agreed that fathers should be more involved in housework and child care (Hofäcker, 2007; Scott, 2006). Mothers continue to perform the majority of domestic work (child care and housework), even in couples where both partners work full-time (Craig & Mullan, 2011; Eurostat, 2009). Given that many fathers want to be Journal of Marriage and Family 82 (April 2020): 566–586
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
