Fatherhood regimes and father involvement in France and the UK

Abstract

This paper contrasts and compares the institutional framework for fatherhood and father involvement and the survey evidence relating to fathers’ contribution to childcare and domestic work in the two countries. It shows that while men's contribution to such activities appears to be increasing in both France and the UK, change is slow and father involvement does not necessarily seem to correlate directly either with patterns of female labour force participation or with the support offered by the institutional framework. The authors explore the theoretical frameworks most appropriate for explaining their findings and situate them primarily in terms of Pfau-Effinger's theorization of the gender arrangement (1998, 2002, 2004). The authors conclude that while change in father involvement is slow, the introduction of statutory and organizational work–life balance measures which alter the gender order open up opportunities for negotiated change in the division of the labour in the home.

Cet article compare le cadre institutionnel de la paternité en France et au Royaume-Uni ainsi que les résultats des études nationales et internationales relatives au temps consacré par les pères aux activités de garde des enfants et au travail domestique. Cela montre que bien que la contribution masculine à ces taches semble augmenter dans les deux pays, les progrès sont lents et l'engagement du père ne semble être lié directement ni au taux d'activité féminine du pays concerné ni au cadre institutionnel de la paternité. Les auteurs étudient les cadres théoriques les plus appropriés et concluent que celui de Pfau-Effinger (1998, 2002, 2004) qui développe l'idée du «gender arrangement», fournit la meilleure explication de leurs résultats. Elles concluent également que si les pères accroissent lentement leur engagement, la mise en vigueur des lois et l'application des mesures organisationnelles en faveur de l'articulation vie professionnelle et vie familiale, qui modifient le «gender order», donnent au couple la possibilité de renégocier la division traditionnelle du travail au sein de la famille.

Keywords:

• fathers
• fatherhood
• father involvement
• domestic division of labour
• work–life balance
• France
• UK

Mots-clés:

• les pères
• la paternité
• la participation des pères
• la division du travail domestique
• l'articulation vie professionnelle–vie familiale
• France
• Royaume-Uni

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the British Academy (Award SG-36628, ‘Men and Family-friendly Employment: An Anglo-French Comparison’) as well as the French Family Benefits Agency (CNAF) for supporting this research (project funded as part of its Childhood initiative and entitled ‘les pères à la recherche d'un nouvel équilibre entre responsabilités familiales et professionnelles — une comparaison franco-britannique’).

Notes

1. This paper's focus is on employment, gender equity and fatherhood. Children's perspectives are not explicitly addressed. For a full summary of the benefits of increased father involvement derived from the extensive body of US and European research, see Lamb (2004) and Lewis and Lamb (2004).

2. Criticisms have been levelled at Lamb and Pleck for their relative neglect of the issues of responsibility and the role of the paternal provider: see the discussion in Pleck and Stueve (2001).

3. For a complete overview of factors influencing father involvement on the basis of US research see Pleck (1997).

4. In response to the question ‘What would be the best situation for a couple with a child aged under three?’ 47% of men and 49% of UK women felt that the mother should stay at home to look after the child and 42% of men and women opted for the woman working part time only. The French results were equally distributed between the mother and father both working, part-time work for the mother and the mother staying at home to look after the child.

5. For example, the Eurostat survey cited here is unable to compare leisure time of French and UK parents because in the French data restful leisure time is coded as sleep. Similarly, Gauthier et al.'s comparative overview (2004) does not allow a direct comparison of France and the UK, because only standardized data for 1965 and 1974 are available for France.

6. It is difficult, however, to compare the surveys directly as they use different measurements of childcare. For example, Anxo et al. (2002) include elder care and separate out domestic work in their research, whereas in Laurie and Gershuny (2000) childcare and domestic work are measured separately and elder care is not included.

7. For France, the 1999 MATISSE survey sought to improve on existing INSEE time-budget data by focusing on ‘parental time’ (which includes ‘taxi’ services accompanying children to school or out-of-school activities, help with homework, playing with children or watching TV with them, as well as domestic work related to care of children). In relation to the time-budget surveys used in the Eurostat comparison cited here in tables 3 and 4, the MATISSE data identify greater parental time for both men and women: two hours, 10 minutes per day for French women, one hour for men (Barrère-Maurisson, 2004). This brings the proportions of time spent by men and women closer to those in the UK than in the Eurostat survey.

8. For a more detailed review of the legal frameworks in both countries see Gregory and Milner (2004).

9. At the time this paper was completed (January 2005), the UK government had just announced its intention to promote obligatory family mediation rather than the principle of shared parenting advocated by the fathers’ rights movement (which the opposition Conservative party decided to adopt).

10. The small proportion of men (two per cent of beneficiaries of the Allocation Parentale d'Education) taking up parental leave have been shown to be lower qualified and less well paid than their wives and tend to be in feminized occupations such as retailing.

11. See European Commission (2004) Equality and Diversity in an Enlarged European Union, Green Paper, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the EC. The Treaty of Amsterdam which came into force in 1999 set targets for women's activity rates across the EU of 60%. It also continued to put pressure on member states to reduce inequalities between men and women and to improve childcare facilities. The resolution of the Council of Ministers for Employment and Social Policy of 29 June 2000 reinforced this thrust with a resolution calling for a more modern division of labour between men and women and the development of measures to improve the work/family balance for men and women. Its resolution called for new measures to be developed such as paternity leave, other measures enabling men to give greater support to their families and to encourage companies to recognize employees’ non-work lives in their management practices (Duncan, 2002; Hantrais, 2000; Letablier, 2002; Méda, 2001).

12. A further 11 days’ leave were added to the existing 3 days’ statutory leave from January 2002. They are paid at 80% of salary up to a ceiling of 2,352 euros (2002 figures).

13. The Livret de Paternité was introduced in 2001, alongside the extension of paternity leave, as part of a package of measures to encourage paternal involvement. On notification of pregnancy, the family benefits agency CNAF sends the document, which includes reference to paternal rights and responsibilities as well as useful addresses, to the future father. The sociologist Christine Castelain Meunier, who had long campaigned for a livret de paternité to complement the already existing livre de maternité for mothers, called the move ‘a real turning point in the way we think of parenthood’: see Castelain-Meunier (2002) and Castelain-Meunier and Delaisi de Parseval (2002).

14. See Gregory and Milner (2005b).

15. These figures have also been substantiated by Gornick and Meyers (2003) in their cross-national comparative work.