“Men, Manhood and Work-Life Balance” – Invited Workshop

Underrepresentation of women in the labour market in Europe, which is visible in the reports provided by the European Commission (2012), is closely connected with gender roles visible when men and women share family and work life. The labour market participation of mothers is 12.1 percentage points lower than that of women without children, while the rate for fathers is 8.7 percentage points higher than that for men without children. This indicates the traditional gender role division: men being attached more to work, whereas women more involved in family life. When equal or comparable educational levels and job opportunities are present, woman’s opportunity to foster her career life depends mainly on 1) division of childcare and household duties between partners and 2) woman’s implicit and explicit self-judgments that would allow her to feel apt and well-suited to climb the career ladder, and lastly: 3) men’s implicit and explicit self- judgments that would allow them to have more share in family life.

During our workshop scholars and academics from different countries will focus on the key factors influencing men’s willingness to engage more in family life, thus enabling women to be more present in the labour market. Most of the individual barriers that would prevent men and women from adopting gender equality ideologies are the effect of existing of gender stereotypes present in a given culture (see e.g. the concept of precarious manhood, Vandello et al., 2012). Apart from individual factors enabling men to be more active in the family life, we would look at cultural cues promoting more egalitarian gender roles.

Workshop is organized under the auspices of PAR Migration Navigator Project. This project is funded from Norway Grants in the Polish-Norwegian Research Programme operated by the National Centre for Research and Development.

It will be held on Saturday, March 7^th from 15:00 to 16:45.

For invited participants only.

Organizers: Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka & Tomasz Besta

The workshop "Men, Manhood and Work-Life Balance" is funded from Norway Grants in the Polish-Norwegian Research Programme operated by the National Centre for Research and Development.