How well do European child-related leave policies support the caring role of fathers?

Our chapter analyses the extent to which European countries (1) recognize the caring responsibilities of fathers toward their children and (2) value fathers' caring role. To do so, we analyze the designs of individual leave policies and reflect on them by assessing available data on leave uptake by fathers in 13 European countries. Our results show that there is great variation in child-related leave designs across Europe. Our findings, in line with previous work, underscore the importance of generous individual non-transferable leave entitlements. Moreover, our findings bring forward aspects of leave designs that are rarely discussed when considering fathers' leave uptake. Our results indicate that generous non-transferable leave rights should be paired with (a) clearly defined leave periods for fathers, (b) individual entitlement to benefits, and (c) greater scope for flexibility to increase the attractiveness of child-related leave and to strengthen fathers' position when negotiating their childcare leave.</p

Is fatherhood allowed? Media discourses of fatherhood in organizational life

It has been claimed that in the context of organizations and management, fathers are invisible. One source of tension for fathers who work and who want to participate in family life is that even though involved fatherhood is emerging in many western societies, a family‐oriented male identity is likely to be problematic for men in organizations. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of a professional and managerial men's work–family relationship using discourse analysis on data from three different media sources in Finland, published during 1990–2015. We identified two competing discourses: one of stasis, the other of change. The stasis discourse is constructed around traditionally masculine management and fatherhood roles, while the changing discourse embodies more diverse masculinities and fatherhood. We conclude that although the discourse on fatherhood in the organizational context is moving towards gender equality, at the same time a strong discourse is putting a brake on such development, especially regarding management.peerReviewe