‘By sharing work we are moving forward’:change in social norms around men’s participation in unpaid care work in Northern Uganda

ABSTRACT

There has been increasing interest in understanding gendered social norms and how they change. This paper explores change in social norms relating to men’s participation in unpaid care work in Northern Uganda, where mixed-methods data from adults, children and adolescents was collected. Socio-cultural changes, related to a civil war and other influences, have been observed in this region. This paper finds that some men took on more responsibility for care work and described this as socially acceptable where it involved ‘masculine tools’, was perceived to be ‘modern’ or to bring financial benefits. These subtle adjustments do not cause radical change but are important because, over time, they can shift social norms in a more permanent way.

KEYWORDS:

• Unpaid care work
• division of labour
• social norms
• gender
• crisis of masculinity
• Northern Uganda

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the research participants and the data collection teams. I am also grateful to the Oxfam WE-Care teams in Uganda and the UK. I also want to thank Prof Douglas Gollin, Dr Gina Crivello and Prof Cheryl Doss for their support and feedback. This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council under grant number ES/J500112/1 and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

1. Since differences between urban and rural areas appeared in interviews, 21 interviews and participant observation with three families took place in a semi-urban village near Kitgum.

2. The WE-Care programme aims to develop strategies to address women’s heavy and unequal care work. Oxfam collected the survey data from adults (see Karimli, Samman, Rost & Kidder, 2016)

3. The research was approved by the Central University Research Ethics Committee (CUREC), the Gulu University Research Ethics Committee and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology. Throughout the research process, my priority was always to protect the wellbeing of the participants. I paid particular attention to ethics when doing research with children.

4. Women’s average age was 35.27 (SD = 12.51, Min = 18, Max = 80, N = 369); men’s average age was 40.95 (SD = 14.00, Min = 20, Max = 87); 9% of women (31, N = 321) and 35% of men (122, N = 353) had received above primary education; households had one (M = 0.85, SD = 0.78, Min = 0, Max = 3, N = 369) under four-year-old child.

5. OLS regression analysis with robust standard errors controlling for the same variables as in Table 3 finds a positive coefficient of 0.069**; standard errors = 0.033; observations = 341; Adjusted R-squared = 0.016.

6. Names have been changed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/J500112/1]; Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes [n/a].

Notes on contributors

Lucia Aline Rost

Lucia Rost is aResearch Manager at Plan International. She recently completed her PhD at the Oxford University Department of International Development. Her research interests are gender, children and development.