Families in the 21st century. Gosta Esping-Andersen. SNS Förlag 2016

Contents

Foreword

Executive summary

Introduction

Chapter 1.- The return of the family

Chapter 2.- Gender Egalitarianism and Family Revival

Chapter 3.- Inequalities and Children’s Life Chances

Conclusions

Bigliography

You can download this document here

We are looking forward to attending the conference “Changing Gender Inequalities, Changing Families?”, which will be held in Leuven, Belgium, on 7-8 December 2017.

Our talk will focus on the relationship between education and men’s involvement in homework and child care. In particular, we will present a joint paper entitled Studying Care, Doing Care: Does Type of Education Affect Men’s Involvement in Unpaid Work? A Comparison between Norway, Austria and Poland. Among the vast literature on the gender division of unpaid work and the so-called “new fathers”, it is a consolidated evidence that not only her but also his level of education matter. However, although shown relevant for other behaviors such as first union or first child, to the best of our knowledge no study has so far examined the role of type of education for men’s share of domestic and care work. By drawing from the Generation and Gender Survey and by comparing three countries (Norway, Austria and Poland) with distinctive cultural and institutional settings, in this paper we focus on couples with young children and we explore whether, controlling for his and her level of education and labor market position, there is a higher time involvement in unpaid work among men trained in fields in which a large majority of students are women and where traditional stereotypical female qualities prevail such as those concerned with the care of individuals and/or which emphasize interpersonal skills compared to those in male-dominated technical fields.

This conference will be the closing event of the interesting project “Implications of the Shifting Gender Balance in Education for Reproductive Behaviour in Europe” (GENDERBALL), funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme. The conference will take place at the Faculty Club in Leuven and currently there are about 50 confirmed participants from Europe and North America.

We thank Jan Van Bavel, principal investigator of the project, for this invitation.

MEN IN MOVEMENT, III

Decolonizing Masculinities: (Re)configuring Bodies, Affects and Politics

International Workshop

November 16th and 17th, 2017

Barcellona

More info here

Recientemente se han publicado dos trabajos muy interesantes sobre el nuevo rol de los hombres en la dinámica familiar para el caso español. Uno en Journal of Family Issues sobre cómo algunas parejas consiguen mantener un reparto 60/40 en las tareas domésticas después del nacimiento de la primera criatura y otro en Community, Work & Family sobre las posibilidades percibidas por los varones de pedir reducción de jornada en su empresa. Ambas investigaciones se han desarrollado en el marco de los proyectos TransParent e Implica.

Os dejamos aquí el contenido y el link por si queréis echarles un vistazo.

Against the Odds? Keeping a Nontraditional Division of Domestic Work After First Parenthood in Spain. Marta Dominguez-Folgueras, Teresa Jurado-Guerrero, and Carmen Botía-Morillas

This article analyzes changes in the division of routine domestic work after first parenthood. We wanted to know whether and how it was possible for couples to resist the trend toward traditionalization that has been shown in the literature. To do so, we analyze semistructured interviews with 27 Spanish couples who were expecting their first child in 2011 and interviewed them again in 2013. The couples were selectedfrom a bigger sample because of their nontraditional practices preparenthood. Our results show that 17 of them were able to maintain a nontraditional division of domestic work, whereas 10 traditionalized. In our analysis, relative resources and time availability did not sufficiently explain the changes in the division of work, but specific characteristics of the division of work before childbirth—men’s active participation, the routinization of tasks, and flexible standards—emerged as key factors to resist the trend toward more traditional arrangements.

If you dare to ask: self-perceived possibilities of Spanish fathers to reduce work hours. Irina Fernández-Lozano

Time scarcity is a reality for most mothers and fathers of young children who work full-time. Though the Spanish law recognizes a specific right to a reduced schedule for care reasons, fathers very rarely make use of this policy. Many of them simply think that, in their current employment circumstances, they ‘can’t’ cut down on work hours. This analysis focuses on the subjective perception that employees have of their difficulty to reduce work hours. Using a nationally representative sample of Spanish employees in charge of young children, and drawing on intersectionality perspectives, we propose that several stratification systems (e.g. gender and economic structure) overlap framing the subjective experience of how easy or difficult it is to adopt a reduced schedule. We confirm that fathers in middle-level service occupations (e.g. clerical workers) may be those most likely to be ‘undoing gender’ at work, as they differ significantly from other fathers in their perception that for them it would be easier to reduce their work hours.

Del 26 al 30 de junio tendrá lugar un curso titulado Baja natalidad, envejecimiento y Estado de Bienestar, dirigido por Pedro Requés – catedrático de geografía humana – en la Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo de Santander.

Uno de los seminarios del curso se centrará en la Transición a la paternidad en España: el nuevo rol de los hombres en la dinámica familiar.

Os dejamos aquí el programa por si os interesa y queréis apuntaros.

Merecerá la pena el curso y, sin duda, Santander 

The GENDERBALL project is the first comprehensive study of the demographic consequences of a major recent development in Europe: while men have always received more education than women in the past, this gender balance in education has now turned around. For the first time in history, there are more highly educated women than men reaching the reproductive ages and looking for a partner. This will have profound consequences for the demography of reproduction because mating practices have always implied that men are the majority in higher education. This research project will study the consequences of this historically new situation for reproductive behaviour.

GENDERBALL is funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).

Principal Investigator: Jan Van Bavel

Web page of this project

Do you know the IMPLICA Project on promoting work-life balance from companies?

IMPLICA PROJECT Web Page

Your company can take part of this Project. They are looking for companies that want to participate in a case study of joint responsability for work-life balance in enterprises. All types of companies can participate, from family businesses and small businesses up to large multinational companies. To join, you only have to answer their questionnaire.

Have a look and involve your company!

Families, Relationships and Societies – Special Issue: Contemporary fatherhood: July 2015; Vol. 4, No. 2 | Guest editors: Tina Miller and Esther Dermott.

WEB SITE