Lappegård Trude, Duvander Ann-Zofie, Neyer Gerda, Viklund Ida, Andersen Synøve N, Garðarsdóttir Ólöf
1University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
2Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Eur J Popul. 2019 Jan 30;36(1):1-25. doi: 10.1007/s10680-019-09518-z. eCollection 2020 Mar.
With increasing union dissolution and changing gender behaviour, questions have emerged about possible links between gender equality and union stability. The aim of this article is to examine whether and how early fathers' involvement in child-rearing is associated with union dissolution in three Nordic countries. All three countries have reserved part of their parental leave to be used by one parent in order to promote fathers' engagement in child-rearing. Our analysis uses fathers' parental leave as a proxy for his involvement, and we distinguish between fathers who take no leave ("non-conforming fathers"), fathers who take only the reserved part ("policy-conforming fathers") and fathers who take more than the reserved part ("gender-egalitarian-oriented fathers"). We find that couples in which the father uses parental leave have a lower risk of union dissolution than couples in which the father takes no leave. The pattern is consistent for all countries, for the whole study period 1993-2011, and for cohabiting and married couples. However, we do not find support for asserting that the couples with greatest gender equality, in which fathers take longer leave than the policy reserves, are the most stable unions, as the pattern is not uniform in the three countries. We attribute this to the fact that gender equality within the family in the Nordic countries is still an ongoing process, and the relationship between gender behaviour and union stability is still in flux.
随着婚姻解体的增加和性别行为的变化，关于性别平等与婚姻稳定性之间可能存在的联系的问题也随之出现。本文旨在研究北欧三个国家中，早期父亲参与育儿与婚姻解体之间是否存在关联以及如何关联。这三个国家都预留了部分育儿假供父母一方使用，以促进父亲参与育儿。我们的分析将父亲的育儿假作为其参与度的代理指标，并区分不休假的父亲（“不符合规定的父亲”）、仅休预留部分假期的父亲（“符合政策的父亲”）以及休假超过预留部分的父亲（“具有性别平等意识的父亲”）。我们发现，父亲休育儿假的夫妻婚姻解体的风险低于父亲不休假的夫妻。在所有国家、整个1993 - 2011年研究期间以及同居和已婚夫妻中，这种模式都是一致的。然而，我们并未找到证据支持这样的观点，即性别平等程度最高、父亲休假时间超过政策规定的夫妻婚姻最稳定，因为这种模式在这三个国家并不统一。我们将此归因于北欧国家家庭内部的性别平等仍在发展过程中，性别行为与婚姻稳定性之间的关系仍在变化。
