Couples' Transitions to Parenthood: Analysing Gender and Work in Europe

Thông tin sách: Couples' Transitions to Parenthood: Analysing Gender and Work in Europe (Hardcover, 336 trang) – Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016. Ngôn ngữ: Tiếng Anh.

It is common for European couples living fairly egalitarian lives to adopt a traditional division of labour at the transition to parenthood. Based on in-depth interviews with 332 parents-to-be in eight European countries, this book explores the implications of family policies and gender culture from the perspective of couples who are expecting their first child. Couples' Transitions to Parenthood: Analysing Gender and Work in Europe is the first comparative, qualitative study that explicitly locates couples' parenting ideals and plans in the wider context of national institutions.

This unique analysis of transitions to parenthood in contemporary Europe focuses on Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and Poland. It explores how parents' agency varies along with policy-culture gaps in their countries and provides evidence of their struggle to adapt to, or resist, socially desired paths and patterns of change. In fact, the ways in which institutional structures limit possible choices and beliefs about motherhood and fatherhood are linked in ways that often go unnoticed by social scientists, policy makers and parents themselves.

This cutting-edge book will be of interest to social scientists, political scientists, journalists and policy-makers. Parents-to-be will also find value in this analysis of gender in parenthood.

Contributors include: P. Abril, J. Alsarve, P. Amigot, S. Bertolini, C. Botía-Morillas, K. Boye, F. Bühlmann, A. Dechant, M. Domínguez Folgueras, M. Evertsson, N. Girardin, D. Grunow, M.J. González, D. Hanappi, T. Jurado-Guerrero, I. Lapuerta, J.-M. Le Goff, T. Martín-García, J. Monferrer, R. Musumeci, M. Naldini, O. Nesporová, M. Reimann, A. Rinklake, C. Roman, M. Seiz, R. Stuchlá, P.M. Torrioni, I. Valarino, G. Veltkamp, M. Verweij

Editorial Reviews Review 'The birth of a first child is a major event for modern, employed couples. Babies need so much and couples must find ways to divide childcare and yet protect the time each needs for their careers and their own relationships. European couples confront these challenges in very different ways, depending on the extent of job-protected family leave and the quality, availability and affordability of childcare. And of course there is always the gender dimension, which seems to favour mothers over fathers in some countries more than others. These in-depth interview studies of couples experiencing new parenthood in eight countries provide engaging and dramatic views of how much can differ (or be taken for granted).' -- Frances Goldscheider, Brown University

'How do couples about to have a child think about gender, work and family? What do they expect from their employers, the state and each other? This cross-national research team has created something absolutely unique-a study that uses rich qualitative data gathered from interviewing over 150 couples across eight European societies. Their approach allows the authors to delve into the interplay between constraints set by governments' and employers' policies, gender ideologies and the concrete plans that couples envision.' -- Paula England, New York University About the Author Edited by Daniela Grunow, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany and Marie Evertsson, Stockholm University, Sweden