Which fathers are involved in looking after their children? Identifying the conditions associated with paternal involvement

经济和政治生活中持续存在的性别不平等的根源之一是妇女在家庭领域承担了更重的工作量，在家庭领域，她们仍然承担着照顾子女和其他家庭成员的大部分工作。在过去四十年中，妇女参与就业的人数有所增加，但男子对育儿和家务的贡献增长缓慢。Sen（1992年）的“能力框架”阐述了国家和组织政策、社会规范以及家庭经济和人口状况如何塑造男性和女性的选择、决定和行为。这一框架表明，有许多社会、经济、人口和文化因素对家庭内部劳动分工的安排施加了后勤压力。然而，对这些因素在影响男子参与育儿方面的相对重要性的研究仍然不足，而且主要基于小规模定性研究或横断面调查数据（Norman，2010年;另见奥布莱恩，2005年）。我们早期的研究（Norman 2010; Norman et al 2014; Norman and Elliot 2015）使用千禧年队列研究（MCS）来制定当孩子9个月和3岁时父亲参与育儿的措施。我们发现，母亲的工作时间与父亲的参与有着最强的联系：如果母亲在孩子出生后9个月和3年都全职工作，那么父亲在孩子3岁时更有可能成为一个参与的父母。如果（一）父亲在工作中的工作时间较短，以及（二）如果他们在孩子出生后9个月参与育儿，则父亲在孩子3岁时也更有可能参与;但这两个变量的影响明显弱于母亲的工作时间。本研究项目将在这一分析的基础上，使用MCS，通过制定更多的父亲参与育儿的措施，以确定哪些就业和社会人口特征塑造了9个月至11岁儿童的父亲参与。部分分析将集中在完整的家庭，以消除关系破裂的混淆影响。我们还将分析父亲参与和家庭保持完整的概率之间的关系，因为以前的研究已经发现父亲参与和夫妻关系质量之间的相关性（例如，Poole et al. 2014）。随着孩子的成长，我们如何制定父亲参与的措施？2.在英国，当孩子9个月大、3岁、5岁、7岁和11岁时，父亲报告的参与养育行为的主要就业、社会人口和态度特征是什么？3.父亲参与孩子生命历程的轨迹是否因父亲而异？如果是，预测因素是什么？4.孩子9个月大时父亲的参与是否预示着孩子11岁时家庭是否仍然完整？在研究这些问题时，该项目旨在促进学术和政策辩论，探讨是什么鼓励或阻碍父亲参与照顾子女。它将通过使用父亲的代表性样本来制定父亲参与的措施，确定父亲之间的差异，并探讨他们的参与如何随着孩子的长大而发展，从而对父母参与的文献做出原创性贡献。这一点尤其重要，因为在整个欧洲关于工作-家庭问题的政策辩论中，父亲越来越受到关注（例如，欧洲联盟，2013年），包括联合王国的政策，联合王国最近的一项改革是引入共同育儿假，旨在为父亲提供更好的支持，让他们更好地参与育儿工作（国际清算银行，2014年）。

One of the root causes of persistent gender inequalities in economic and political life is that women carry a heavier workload in the domestic domain where they still do most of the work involved in looking after children and other family members. Women's engagement in employment has risen over the last four decades but men's contribution to childcare and housework has grown more slowly. Sen's (1992) 'capability framework' elaborates how state and organisational policies, social norms, and household economic and demographic circumstances shape men and women's options, decisions and behaviours. This framework suggests there are many social, economic, demographic and cultural factors, which exert logistic pressures on the arrangement of the domestic division of labour in households. Yet the relative importance of these factors in shaping men's involvement in childcare remains under-researched and largely based on small-scale qualitative studies or cross-sectional survey data (Norman 2010; also see O'Brien 2005). Our earlier research (Norman 2010; Norman et al 2014; Norman and Elliot 2015) used the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) to develop measures of paternal involvement in childcare when the child was aged nine months and three years old. We found the mothers' employment hours had the strongest association with paternal involvement: if the mother worked full-time both nine months and three years after the child's birth then the father was more likely to be an involved parent when the child was aged three. Fathers were also more likely to be involved when the child was aged three if (i) they worked shorter hours in employment and (ii) if they were involved in childcare nine months after the child's birth; but the effect of both these variables was significantly weaker than that of the mothers' employment hours. This research project will build on this analysis, using the MCS, by developing more measures of paternal involvement in childcare to establish which employment and socio-demographic characteristics shape paternal involvement as children age from nine months to eleven years old. Part of the analysis will focus on intact households to remove the confounding impact of relationship breakdown. We will also analyse the relationship between paternal involvement and the probability of households remaining intact given previous research has found a correlation between paternal involvement and the quality of a couple relationship (e.g. Poole et al. 2014).The research questions to be addressed are:1. How can we develop measures of paternal involvement over time as the child develops?2. What are the key employment, socio-demographic, and attitudinal characteristics of fathers in the UK who report involved parenting behaviour when their child is aged 9 months, 3, 5, 7 and 11 years old?3. Do trajectories of paternal involvement over the child's lifecourse vary between fathers and if so, what are the predictors?4. Does paternal involvement when the child is aged nine months predict whether a household is still intact when the child reaches age eleven?In examining these questions, the project aims to contribute to scholarly and policy debates about what encourages or impedes fathers' involvement in providing care for their children. It will make an original contribution to the literature on parental involvement by using a representative sample of fathers to develop measures of paternal involvement, identify differences among fathers and explore how their involvement develops as the child grows older. This is particularly relevant in light of the growing attention to fathers within policy debates about work-family issues across Europe (e.g. European Union 2013), including UK policy, where the introduction of shared parental leave is the most recent reform designed to provide better support for fathers and their involvement in childcare (BIS 2014).