SOC352H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Filial Piety, Parental Leave, Gender Role
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Lecture 4 :The Social Construction of Masculinity: Implications for Caregiving
Lecture Overview
• 1.Recap of the gendered division of labour
• 2.Trends in caregiving in Canadian households
• 3.Understanding the Influence of Gender Role Identity on the Assumption of Family Caregiving
Roles by Men – Hirsch (1996)
• 4.Cultural norms and masculine caregiving
• 5.Fathers’ Frames for Childrearing: Evidence Towards a “Masculine Concept of Caregiving” –
Golden (2007)
• 6.Changing norms – non-traditional family structures
•Feminization of Care Work
• Recall:
o Rise of industrialization and the ideological separation between public and private
spheres
• •The Second Shift (Hochschild)
o The labour performed by women in the home in addition to the paid work performed in
the formal sector
o Major increase in women’s labour participation in the paid sector
o Lack of increase in men’s participation in domestic work and caregiving à Unequal
burden on women
Canadian Household Trends
• The days of men becoming the sole provider has declined
Canadian Household Trends
• Despite the fact that both men and women are earning income
• It still hasn’t created a gender equity in income
• Women have increased in labour force but they are still significantly loaded with the work at
home
Canadian Household Trends
• More men are becoming stay at home dads
• But they still are not occurring at the same rate for women as stay at women
• 1/10 families have stay at home days
Canadian Household Trends
• Increase in stay-at-home dads, but still nowhere close to equal
• The decline in stay-at-home moms does not mean women have less domestic and care
responsibilities
• Participation in the formal/paid sector often means the double burden of formal and informal
labour
Hirsch (1996): Influence of Gender Role Identity
• Explores the way in which men take on caregiving roles in opposition to the socialization process
that discourages men as caregivers
• The “Bi-Polar Socialization Model
o A socialization that starts at young age
o Girls are encouraged to seek gratification for caring more than men
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o Men are deterred from seeing self enhancement from doing these things
o Eg. Girls playing with dolls, but males are discouraged from playing with dolls
o This process set the context for why these male and female typologies exist
• Caregiving activities vs. caregiver roles (Pearling)
o Even in context where men perform activities of care, it isn’t adopted as their role
identities as women do
• Gender schema theory vs. microstructural theory
o Gender schema theory: individuals that are not gender typed have more options for
engaging in behavior that is not masculine
▪ Eg. Children growing up with a single father
o Microsctructural theory: only structural factors at the individual level that influences their
care
▪ Eg. Not having a father and wanting to care of your children so that your
children don’t experience what you did
Hirsch (1996)
• The Cognitive Dissonance Model
• Men with high degrees of internalized gender-stereotypical identities can still move into
caregiving roles in certain contexts
o They reframe it by seeing the work as masculine
• Pathways to caregiving for men
• Countervailing ideologies:
o Importance of religion/spiritual beliefs
▪ Eg. Part of their Christian beliefs
o Personal labeling/interpretation
▪ If men see their father doing work that wasn’t masculine makes them label it as
masculine as well
o Ethnic identity
o Community identity
o Androgyny
▪ Don’t adopt masculine identities so they are fine by doing both male and female
work
o Affection
▪ Men report taking care for someone because they loved them
Cultural Norms and Masculine Caregiving
• Cross-cultural study of male caregivers in the United States and Japan
• In aging populations why are men taking care of their family
• Filial piety: a responsibility to take care of family
o Usually done by the daughter in law, but in the absence of one, men feel like its their
responsibility to take care of their parents
• American men felt like caring for their parents was a pay to pay them back for the care they
provided him when he was a child
o It was a personal commitment
o Because society didn’t require them to take care of their parents it was more of a moral
obligation
• For the Japanese men, they were culturally committed to taking care of their family
o It was a structural commitment
• Culture shapes the experiences of male caregivers and the values men place on their caregiving
roles
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• culture transmits norms and behaviors to successive generations
• Culture influences social change
Supporting Men as Care Providers
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• major proportions of the world do not have paid leave for fathers
• places in red have no paid leave
• in the orange, they countries have it but it is deterred
• in order to have more men providing care, there should be more acess to paid leave because then
the men cant leave their work, since they still need to provide for their family
• suggests that its easier for women to leave work, and the norms use this to suggest that women
should be the ones that provide this care
Masculine Caregiving and Gender Equality
• Germany
o Prior to 2007: 3.5% of fathers took leave
o After 2007 Policy change:
▪ In 2008, 21% of fathers took leave
▪ In 2014: 30% of fathers took leave
• German fathers who took leave:
o Spend more time on childcare and housework
o Greater gender equality in division of childcare and housework.
Shifts in Social Norms: Peer Group Effect
• In 1993, Norway reformed policy to offer governmental paid paternity leave
o Fathers taking paternity leave increased from 3% prior to the change to 35% in 2012
• Seeing a coworker take leave increases likelihood by 3.5 times; seeing a brother take leave
likelihood by 4.7 times. Why?
o Transmission of knowledge about benefits of taking leave
▪ They know about the costs and benefits of doing so
o Increase in social acceptability
o Lessens fears about detrimental effects of taking leave
▪ Can see how the employer will react
Golden (2007)
• How do men construct their experiences of caregiving and childrearing? In doing so, how did
they contribute to reducing obstacles to men’s participation in care work?
• Research goal: to advance a definition of a “masculine concept of care”, while promoting a view
of caregiving that does not perpetuate dualistic views of sex and gender
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Document Summary
Lecture 4 :the social construction of masculinity: implications for caregiving. Lecture overview: 1. recap of the gendered division of labour, 2. trends in caregiving in canadian households, 3. understanding the influence of gender role identity on the assumption of family caregiving. Roles by men hirsch (1996: 4. cultural norms and masculine caregiving, 5. fathers" frames for childrearing: evidence towards a masculine concept of caregiving . Canadian household trends: the days of men becoming the sole provider has declined. Canadian household trends: despite the fact that both men and women are earning income, women have increased in labour force but they are still significantly loaded with the work at. It still hasn"t created a gender equity in income home. Canadian household trends: more men are becoming stay at home dads, but they still are not occurring at the same rate for women as stay at women, 1/10 families have stay at home days. 1: men are deterred from seeing self enhancement from doing these things, eg.
