General

Source: IPS
The domestic role played by half of the world's population has long been overlooked by policy-makers, with research and reports on gender roles focusing almost entirely on women.

The "Men in Families" report released last week by the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs seeks to redress this imbalance by looking at the role men play in families globally and suggesting policy changes that can encourage men to be more engaged in family life.

"Men play a number of roles within families, they are disciplinarians, educators and caregivers. However, state- level policy has focused on the role of men as providers," said Gary Barker, co-author of the report and director of Instituto Promundo, a Brazilian nongovernmental organisation that works to promote gender equality.

The key message of the report is that men can have an enormous positive influence on their families.

"Families where the male partner is actively involved raising the children, where the father is present at key moments in his children's lives, tend to be more stable and more successful," said Professor Margaret O'Brien, co- director of the Centre for Research on the Child and Family at the University of East Anglia, U.K. and author of the report's "Fathers in Challenging Contexts" chapter.

However, despite their potential to make a significant contribution to the wellbeing of their families, the report indicates that men are still doing far less than their fair share of care work and domestic tasks.

Globally, women spend two to 10 times as many hours on unpaid care work than men. The figure is particularly glaring as women are now an established part of the world's work force. Despite the enormous increase in the economic contribution of women over the past five decades, traditional ideas about gender roles remain deeply ingrained.

According to the report, across Europe, 70 percent of people felt that women with school-going children should work part- time.

"Women are still seen primarily as caregivers even when they are they fulfilling the role of the provider," said O'Brien.

Men's aversion to playing a more equal part in raising children remains widespread in spite of legislation aimed at encouraging more male involvement. For example, use of paternity leave remains low, with men in countries as diverse as Brazil, Mexico and Norway taking only a fraction of their stipulated paternity leave.

While the report makes it clear that men are still lagging behind in terms of fulfilling roles as caregivers, it holds out the hope that they can be taught. In Britain, the average man now spends 90 minutes a day on child care compared to just 40 minutes in 1987. Norway and the U.S. have shown similar increases.

"With smaller, more nuclear families, men have had to fulfill new roles. Without larger extended families where several women live under one roof, men are finding themselves taking on roles traditionally assigned to women. However, attitudes are changing very slowly," O'Brien noted.

According to Barker, women's increasing economic empowerment is not enough, in itself, to establish greater gender quality.

"Women are making a larger and larger economic contribution this is changing society but to make sure men's attitudes keep pace you need to engage them, make them accept the idea of equality and accept that work traditionally associated with women isn't beneath them," he said.

Barker cited data that revealed that men regularly overestimate their involvement in domestic duties. In Brazil, for example, 60 percent of men claimed they participated equally or more than equally in at least one domestic activity. However, only 20 percent of Brazilian women agreed with this assessment, and similar disparities were reported in every country surveyed.

"There is a policy dimension and a social dimension to rectifying this imbalance. Educational policy can encourage men to become more involved in domestic tasks, however, to change attitudes you need TV and radio programmes as well as the internet to provide role models and break down traditional stereotypes," said Barker.

The "Men in Families" report recommends that boys take classes in life-skills to introduce them to the idea of participating in domestic work. And while classes in sweeping, ironing and child rearing might not seem likely to engage boys, data gathered by the study appeared to suggest there is a tangible payoff for men who learn to perform domestic tasks.

A survey conducted in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Croatia, India and Rwanda revealed that women whose partners played a greater role doing domestic tasks showed greater sexual satisfaction.