Gender and becoming parents

• Setting the Western context

  • More women in higher education/ the workplace
  • The total fertility rate (TFR) reached a record low in 2020, decreasing to 1.58 children per woman
  • Fewer babies born. Births occurring at a later age for women (Average age in the UK is 31.7 years)
  • The majority of households in the UK are now 'working households'
• Gender and gender fates

  How relevant are they in determining paid work and caring practices?
• Intimate sphere and relationships

  Intimate relationships and ways of doing family have become more fluid and less tethered in traditional patterns, resulting in increased fragmentation of social and cultural life and greater individual choice
• Mothers in couple families continue to take responsibility for twice as much childcare, and most of the domestic work in the home
• The birth of a baby


  Crystalises gendered divisions in couple relationships
• Parenthood


  Can reinforce gendered stereotypes in relation to how perceived responsibilities for care and paid work are assumed/configured
• Researching same-sex parenting can provide insights into how gendered practices can be performed
• Postmodernity/Neoliberalism


  The era of the 'child as project'
• Making Sense of Motherhood (2005)


  • Women anticipated they would naturally and instinctively know how to mother
  • Birth experiences were all different to what they had expected/been led to believe
  • Mothering did not come 'naturally' for most of the women – but they felt unable to talk about normal difficulties (producing 'sanitised' versions of actual experiences)
  • Only retrospectively could the women challenge the 'myths of motherhood' and 'risk' talking about how things had really been
• Making Sense of Fatherhood (2011)


  • Men positioned themselves as 'willing learners' but also 'detached' before the birth
  • They emphasised 'being there' as an involved fatherhood and expressed a desire to share caring for their child – in emotional and not (just) economic ways
  • During the two years following the birth – men spoke of the 'hard work' of caring, of needing to 'fit fathering in' and eventually of the importance of their economic 'breadwinner' role and their 'worker identity'
• Motherhood: Contemporary Experiences and Generational Change (2023)


  • Women anticipated they would naturally and instinctively know how to mother
  • Birth experiences were all different to what they had expected/been led to believe. Significant increase in intervention/c-section births
  • Mothering did not come 'naturally' for most of the women – but they were able to share experiences virtually (WhatsApp groups could become lifelines). But some still felt pressure and concealed experiences 'putting my game face on')
  • Illusion of 'work/family' balance. Sharing turns out to be harder to achieve
  • Intensified motherhood has become further intensified
• Commentators have argued that Fathers should have an individual NON- TRANSFERABLE entitlement to leave, rather than transferred from the mother
• The non-transferable, 'use-it-or-lose-it' model of leave has been shown to be effective in changing behaviours
• The most direct and far reaching policy to encourage fatherhood involvement is though paternity leave, but also through 'solo caring'
• Maternal gatekeeping


  Behaviours which 'ultimately inhibit a collaborative effort between men and women in family work by limiting men's opportunities for learning and growingthrough caring for home and children'
• In many Western Countries, mothers continue to be the ones who are more likely to work 'flexibly' / 'balance their paid work and caring
• Research shows that fathers (and grandfathers) are capable of family caring in ways once biologically assumed only of mothers (including hormonal changes around the time of birth)
• Choices for mothers and fathers operate in different, historically etched and gendered ways
• In some countries policies are shifting to facilitate 'changing places' /roles becoming 'interchangeable'
• The ways in which parental caring, paid work and family life are organised in Northern Europe indicates men's capacities to care and women's capacities to be successful in the workplace
• Undoing gender


  Behaviours that reduce gender inequality with the potential to become 'genderless'
• A pandemic which disrupted some gendered conventions - Families had to 'stay home'/work from home and share domestic space (in ways not previously encountered), 'Caring' became visible across communities/cultures, Being 'at work' changed with regard to physical proximity traditionally associated with the workplace (and the 'public sphere')
• Ideas in relation to gender have become increasingly fluid, but in relation to caring they can be more resistant to change
• Resisting pressures to conform to gendered stereotypes 'is no mean feat'
• Non-traditional gender ideology is increasing, which is the pathway to gender equality