Introduction

After outlining the key aspects of the changing social, cultural, and policy context of parenting in Western societies, the introduction clarifies terminology and key concepts used throughout the book, such as the distinction among fatherhood, fathering, and types of fathers. It also presents the theoretical framework used to examine father involvement with young children in six countries. This includes the fatherhood regime, fathers’ agency gap and capability to care for children, and gendered care and workplace cultures. In addition, the structural context of welfare states and policy regimes is reviewed to frame the institutional support for father involvement, such as compensated paternity and parental leave. At the individual level father involvement is conceptualized as encompassing engagement, accessibility and responsibility as expressed in the type and quantity of time of fathers’ activities with their young children. Finally, the chapter briefly outlines the structure of the book.

The United Kingdom

This chapter examines contemporary fathering practices in the UK liberal welfare state context, where recent legislation has expanded fathers’ access to work-family reconciliation rights, albeit rather minimally. Data are provided to explore whether the new cultural mandate for active fathers holds for the quantity and the quality of time fathers spend with young children. Time use and employment activity data does show an increase in British fathers’ care time and a reduction in paid work time over the decade. Since 2003 British fathers can take two weeks paid leave after the birth of a child, and by the end of the decade over 90% of fathers took significant post-birth leave. However, British fathers, continue to have one of the longest working weeks and highest level of work–family conflict amongst European fathers. In the absence of stronger work–family reconciliation measures, underlying maternalist and modified breadwinner cultures remain resilient.

Italy

Italy is a familistic welfare state with a traditional breadwinner regime that is slowly changing into a dual earner regime among the younger generations. The chapter investigates how the tensions among cultural norms of familism, changing laws expanding paternal rights and obligations, and narratives of active fathers affect father involvement with young children. In Italy, conceptions of the traditional and modern fathers coexist. Empirical evidence suggests that the new fathers are hesitant to emerge. While the involvement of fathers in family life is growing, commitment to caring activities depends on father’s level of education and partner’s labour market participation. Only a minority of men who are younger and who are more inclined to accept a model of masculinity that includes active fatherhood is highly engaged with their children. Institutional support is necessary to encourage more father involvement and gender egalitarianism, such as extension of compulsory and paid paternity leave, legal mechanisms to encourage fathers to take parental leave, implementation of planned educational programs designed to enhance fathering skills and to promote father involvement, and investment in research on fathers.

Comparative father involvement: the dynamics of gender culture, policy and practice

This concluding chapter provides summary and analytic comparison of the statutory leave policies, child care coverage, and indicators of the gender and fatherhood regimes of the six countries featured in this book. It synthesizes the lessons learned, describes the patterns found, proposes an elaborated conceptual model of father involvement with young children, and provides some recommendations for policy and practice. Based on the evidence presented, the editors examine to what extent the integration of the concepts of ‘capability to care’ and ‘agency gap’ into the fatherhood regime model are useful in understanding the intersections of gender regime, family policy, and related cultures of care, workplace culture, and fathers’ individual agency and practice. What are the commonalities and differences in how cultural norms regarding masculinity and maternalism, degrees of gender egalitarianism, and related policy constellations translate into specific fathering practices? What can be learned from the different attempts to increase father involvement with young children via policies in order to promote gender egalitarianism and family well–being that includes empowered fathers?

Germany

This chapter describes the context of current German family policies with special emphasis on regional differences since unification in 1990. West Germany’s legacy of the strong male breadwinner system and maternalism continues to support a different gendered ‘culture of care’ than that in the East, where the socialist dual earner system has left its mark. The classic Western conservative welfare state recently has incorporated some social-democratic policy features. Both regions now have the same increasingly father-friendly family policies and there is a common public discourse on the desirability of ‘active fatherhood’. However, while data on father involvement with young children reflect somewhat more engagement in the Eastern states and a generally high number of “weekend fathers,” in cross-national comparison Germany boasts relatively low levels of father involvement. This may be due to remaining maternalist traditions and slowly changing workplace cultures.

Slovenia

Slovenia is an example of a post–socialist welfare state with a dual earner gender regime. There is a mismatch between fathers’ egalitarian attitudes and their traditional behaviour in daily practice. Fathers prefer to play a supportive role in daily childcare tasks and responsibilities, which translates into less care work and responsibility. Men’s participation in early child care appears to be optional and they can choose which work they want to do and when. Routine infant care remains mothers’ work, while fathers are more involved with somewhat older children and more enjoyable, less routine child care. While the division of care and paid work continues to be gendered, recent policies encouraging fathers to be more involved with young children may have helped support an increase in active fathers. The statutory provisions for fathers in Slovenia are quite comprehensive and well-designed but employers have to offer more flexibility and encourage father to use their entitlements. Fathers have an individual entitlement to 130 days of parental leave (transferrable to the mother) and 15 days (to be extended to 30 days soon) of paternity leave, both with full income compensation.

Finland

Finland, as exemplar of the social–democratic welfare regime with generous social policies and a dual-earner model, has recently very intentionally targeted the inclusion of fathers in family policy by revising the fathers’ quota in the parental leave provision. Based on a shared parenting ideology, fathers’ participation in early child care has increased significantly in terms of quantity of time since the 1980s. However, fathers of pre-schoolers still continue to work more hours than any other men in Finland and fathers’ share of all the used parental leave days has increased only relatively slowly. Thus, an important challenge for future family policy will be the focus on incentives that further increase fathers’ take up of parental leave. A major question for empirical research is an examination of the extent to which fathers’ enhanced father involvement in the early years contributes to their long-term future participation in their children’s lives.

The United States

As the classic liberal welfare state with a dual-earner regime, the US is unique in being the only advanced country and one of only four nations in the world that has no statutory right to paid maternity leave (or paternity or parental leave) for employees. The Family and Medical Leave Act provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave to both genders but only covers about 60% of all US employees. Hence the US government relies on the tax system and employers to provide support for parents. Interventions targeting fathers focus on low-income fathers who fail to fulfil their normative provider role as married head of household. As neither paid leaves, allowances or low-cost public day care are easily available, US fathers provide a relatively high amount of childcare to young children, by necessity. For about 20% of pre-school children fathers are the primary childcare provider, they spend about 2 hours a day with primary childcare, and about 1/3 are highly involved. US fathers are experiencing a high agency gap due to a demanding workplace and low levels of support for active fathers.