Helping or Sharing? Investigating Fathers’ Participation in Childcare

Wiktoria Bachorek , SGH Warsaw School of Economics
Marta Bryzek, SGH Warsaw School of Economics

This study investigates the gendered division of childcare in contemporary relationships, revealing the persistent gap between the ideal of gender equality and the reality of traditional caregiving roles. Despite increasing public discourse around involved fatherhood, childcare responsibilities remain overwhelmingly feminised. While many fathers express a desire to be active participants, their involvement typically centres on play and leisure rather than the daily, time-intensive, and often invisible tasks that constitute the core of childcare. These patterns are not merely personal preferences but are shaped by deeply rooted social norms and cultural expectations surrounding gender and parenting. Using data from the second round of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS-II, 2020–2024) covering 13 European countries, this research explores cross-national variations in parental practices and satisfaction with the division of care. The analysis shows that mothers continue to assume the bulk of essential caregiving duties, such as dressing children, putting them to bed, and caring for them when they are ill, while fathers’ engagement remains largely peripheral and recreational. Across all contexts, men report higher satisfaction with existing arrangements than women, suggesting that unequal divisions are often normalised and perceived as fair. Although policy measures promoting paternal involvement, such as parental-leave reforms, have facilitated incremental progress, they have yet to produce a fundamental cultural shift. Achieving genuine gender equality in childcare requires confronting entrenched assumptions about caregiving and fostering a societal transformation that equally values and distributes care work.

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 Presented in Session P1. Families, Fertility, and the Life Course 1