The Distribution of Unpaid Domestic Work in Hungarian Stay-at-Home Father—Working-Mother Families

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Hungarian stay-at-home father—working-mother families from a point of view of how the distribution of unpaid domestic work develops during the period when the father stays at home with his child(ren). It answers the question of what principles and implemented practices govern the division of household labour in these families. According to the perception of the traditional parental role, unpaid domestic work, such as family duties, routine housework, and care work are the responsibility of mothers, while fathers are responsible for the financial stability of the family. In addition to the once prevailing breadwinner father role, nowadays the egalitarian model is becoming increasingly prominent. In parallel, a new father type appears according to which a good father wants to be more involved in the everyday life of the child. An extreme case of this type of involvement is when the father stays at home with his child(ren) and becomes the primary caregiver, and the mother assumes the role of breadwinner. The ratio of such families is growing around the world, but we still know relatively little about them. Our gap-filling, qualitative research is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 31 Hungarian stay-at-home fathers supplemented by a short questionnaire with their partners. The data were analyzed by thematic analysis method. As a main conclusion we could identify two clearly distinguishable groups among the examined couples: families with a rather traditional approach, and families having more egalitarian values concerning gender roles. However, the findings suggest that all of these families can be characterised by egalitarian sharing practices of duties, and at the same time by undoing gender. The distribution of routine housework and care work is based on a time availability perspective, which does not specify any masculine or feminine family duty or work.