Full-time employment is still the default option for men; new mothers are expected to remain available to care for their children
- Ruth Gaunt
A new study finds that the more a woman self-identifies with her profession, the more paid hours she works and the less time she spends with the couple’s children, but the more equal the childcare balance is between a couple.
However, the more a woman identifies herself with motherhood, the less time the father spends with the children.
And while the more a man self-identifies as a parent the more time he spends with children, this had no impact on the amount of time the woman spends on childcare – regardless of her self-identity.
The study, from Cambridge University’s Department of Sociology, extensively surveyed 148 couples with at least one child aged 6 years or younger to explore how both self-aware and – to some extent – latent individual priorities and ideologies help shape decisions about parenting.
Published recently in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly, researchers say this is one of the first major studies to analyse how parental and work identities of both fathers and mothers impact on childcare.
Read the full story
Image: Woman working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber Tennessee, February 1943
Credit: Alfred T. Palmer
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
_______________________________________