Lhe people pages of magazines more and more often show famous actors or athletes, with advantageous muscles, dark glasses on their noses and babies in their arms. In parks, young fathers are frequently seen skillfully piloting prams, seemingly without risk to their masculinity. Is being a father and taking care of your young children on a daily basis now socially accepted?
Paid paternity leave, created in 2002 and extended to twenty-five days in 2021, helps to strengthen the bonds between fathers and their offspring. But our research (“ Deviation from the ideal worker norm and lower career success expectations: A “men’s issue” too? », by Clotilde Coron and Emmanuelle Garbe; Journal of Vocational Behavior2023) show the strength of stereotypes still at work in the professional world.
Managers start to doubt
For a man, reducing his activity to spend time with his children always remains, despite the Epinal image of fulfilled fatherhood, a high-risk choice. Very few of them dare to do so. Today, only 1% opt for a voluntary part-time in order to take care of their family, whether young children or elderly parents losing their independence.
Twice as many men work part-time to pursue a second professional activity or to follow training than to take care of their family. Those who keep free time to devote themselves to a hobby are also more numerous than those who want to take care of their children or their parents!
Our research helps us understand these reluctances. Existing research shows that the few 30% of women who work part-time (half of them for family reasons) are penalized in their careers, with lower hourly wages, more difficulty accessing responsibilities and lower quality positions than their full-time counterparts. Men who choose time for their family are no less penalized than women. On the contrary. They are doubly so.
As with women using these systems, managers begin to doubt their professional commitment a priori. If they want time for their family, their mobilization in the service of the company necessarily becomes uncertain for their hierarchy.
A recent distribution of tasks
But it goes further. Men who choose part-time work to care for their loved ones are not conforming to what is expected of a man. Mentalities have evolved less than we think. For 35% of European Union residents, a man’s priority is to earn money and a wife to take care of the house and the family. While the vast majority of women (68%) work full time on the continentthis “choice” remains considered by one in two Europeans to be to the detriment of the family.
You have 48.46% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.