Parental constructions of masculinity at the transition to parenthood: the division of parental leave among Austrian couples

Abstract

Men and masculinity are considered a key factor in changing gender inequality at the transition to parenthood. Prior research on gendered division of parental leave concentrated on fathers’ perspectives. This paper includes perspectives of fathers and mothers who make use of parental leave in different ways and asks how masculinity is jointly constructed, how these constructions are linked to the use of parental leave, and if and how they are oriented towards hegemonic masculinity. The analysis is based on 44 qualitative interviews with 11 Austrian couples before and after birth when decisions concerning parental leave were made. Our case reconstructions reveal that parents considered parental leave a central element of masculinity as long as it suited fathers’ needs and circumstances permitted. The decisions for sharing parental leave were father-centred as both partners valued father’s leave higher than mother’s.

Keywords:

• Parental leave
• gendered division of labour
• fatherhood
• joint constructions of masculinity
• hegemonic masculinity
• multiple perspectives

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Andrea Doucet, Lindsey McKay, Caroline Berghammer and Renata Nemrava for their suggestions and comments.

Notes on contributors

Eva-Maria Schmidt is University Assistant for Family Sociology at the University of Vienna. She studied Sociology and European Ethnology. Her research interests are fatherhood and masculinity, work and organization, gendered transition to parenthood, childrearing in cohabitation and marriage, parental biographies, and qualitative methods in social sciences. Currently, she is working on her PhD about masculinities between care and career.

Irene Rieder studied Sociology at the University of Vienna. Her master thesis focused on Family Sociology and concerned transnational families. Currently, she is employed at the University of Vienna as a research assistant in the EU project ‘Families And Societies'. The research focus is on the gendered transition to parenthood in Austria.

Ulrike Zartler is Assistant Professor for Family Sociology at the University of Vienna, Department of Sociology. Her main research interests cover family sociology, childhood sociology, legal aspects of family and childhood, and qualitative research methods. She is particularly experienced in the fields of divorce and post-divorce families, normative constructions of families, children's participation, and transition processes in families. Her main publications include contributions in diverse international peer-reviewed journals (e.g. Journal of Marriage and Family, Childhood, Children & Society, Journal of Family Research, Family Science).

Cornelia Schadler is Erwin Schrödinger Fellow at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich. She is currently working on a project on families as a nexus of material-discursive practices. Cornelia was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna, where she also completed her PhD (2011). Her dissertation on the topic of transformation processes at the transition to parenthood was fully funded by a DOC-scholarship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She was visiting scholar at the Temple University in Philadelphia, the University of Utrecht and the University of Mainz.

Rudolf Richter, Prof. Dr., is University Professor of Sociology at the University of Vienna. He works in the specialized field of family sociology and was president of the Research Committee of Family Research of the International Sociological Association from 2006 to 2014. He was board member and chair of the European Observatory on the Social Situation, Demography and the Family, implemented by the European Commission from 2000 to 2004. He taught at the University of Minnesota and the Arizona State University. Currently, he is WP co-leader and leader of the task ‘Becoming and Being a(n) (Unequal) Parent: Fathers in Pregnancy and Early Parenthood' in the context of the European research project ‘Families And Societies. Changing families and sustainable societies: Policy contexts and diversity over life course and across generations' agreement no. 320116, and Chair of LOC for the ISA Forum taking place in Vienna in 2016.

Notes

1. To date, research has concentrated on retrospective data on the decision for (sharing) parental leave.

2. For more detailed information see Austrian Federal Chancellery (2015).

3. At the time of the second interviews, yet only parts of parental leave were consumed.

4. A case is constituted by four interviews (father and mother each interviewed pre- and postnatal).

5. This is in stark contrast to cases in our sample where the father's higher income is used to legitimate that he is not able to make use of parental leave.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union, 7th Framework Programme [320116], and was sponsored by the University of Vienna [000106].