#2 Men, Masculinities, and Reproduction: Masculinities in the Context of Care - Relational Negotiations in Everyday Family Life

Introduction:

In the fields of care and family research, it is widely recognised that caregiving and the associated responsibilities, resources and burdens are distributed unevenly within family relationships, particularly along gender lines (see Patulny & Petrolo, 2024; Doucet, 2023; McDonnell et al., 2019). Focusing on masculinities enables us to examine how fatherhood and caring masculinities—understood as forms of masculinity in which men reject domination and integrate values of care such as emotional engagement and relational interdependence into their identities (Elliott, 2016)—emerge from the relational negotiation of care in everyday family life. These negotiations are shaped by the interplay of paid work and care work, and are embedded within institutional, cultural, and normative frameworks.

Families, in all their diversity, have one thing in common: They are central sites of care work and spaces of ambivalent experiences. While they are sources of closeness, meaning and fulfilment, they can also be sources of burden, stress and overload (Baghdadi et al., 2025). These ambivalences highlight that wellbeing is not a purely individual phenomenon but a relational, situated process, where individual and collective needs, everyday practices, emotions and resources are interlinked and context dependent (Burkitt, 2016).

Care practices—mental, emotional, physical and organisational—are crucial not only for individual wellbeing, but also for maintaining social relationships, families and broader societal cohesion (Tronto, 1993). In the Swiss context, these negotiations take place within an evolving, complex, and contradictory gender and care regime. Although more women are participating in the labour force, few men are reducing their working hours. While public and private childcare services have expanded, they remain unevenly distributed among families of different income levels or in different locations, and remain expensive (Häusermann & Bürgisser, 2022). Many parents describe themselves as broadly satisfied with family life, yet conditions remain challenging, particularly for families with young children (Bundesamt für Statistik, 2021). Persistent inequalities highlight the fragility of these arrangements. This relates not only to the unequal division of care work between cis-heterosexual parents, but also to temporal flexibility, financial security and the opportunity to organize care work in adaptable ways (Baghdadi et al., 2025).

The interdisciplinary research project “Parental Wellbeing – Family Care between Reward and Overload”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and based at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, combines narrative couple interviews with queer and cis-heterosexual parents of children aged 0–12 in German-speaking Switzerland with a digital diary study capturing care practices in real time. Together, these methods allow wellbeing to be analysed as a relational, situated process. The following sections examine the challenges of balancing care with family wellbeing and illustrate how masculinities are established and challenged in everyday family life. 

Masculinities in Tension: Individual Expectations, Caring Masculinities, and Normative Ideals

Care work performed by fathers is often considered unusual and seen as an exception rather than a normal part of parenting. This is reflected, for example, in the popular term ‘Papatag’ (meaning a ‘dad-day’), which is used to describe an involved father who works part-time and cares for his child(ren) on a regular weekday. At the same time, societal ideals of the ‘involved father’ and discourses on family and gender equality emphasise the importance of male involvement in care, setting the expectation that fathers must actively engage in caregiving (Patulny & Petrolo, 2024; Dermott, 2008). However, studies show that fathers' involvement in caregiving often takes different forms, with men tending to take on duties associated with masculinity, such as arranging services, managing care or carrying out home repairs and maintenance tasks. These contributions are not always recognised as caregiving in the same way as routine, everyday care (Leung et al., 2019). Everyday negotiations in families reveal a reality far more complex than normative ideals suggest, which is why studying masculinities in care matters. Masculinities emerge through the relational interplay of parental relationships, care arrangements, societal expectations and the prioritisation of needs. 

Masculinities as Relational Practice: Insights from Everyday Family Life

In masculinity studies, masculinities are conceptualised as social practices that are produced, negotiated and challenged within specific contexts (Connell, 2016). When applied to care, this means that caring masculinities are not only about whether men engage in care work, but also about how caregiving is carried out, divided up and acknowledged within ever-changing and contradictory social contexts. Our initial analysis of narrative interviews with cis-heterosexual parents suggests that many of the fathers in our study play an active role in childcare, take responsibility and desire a more flexible division of labour. However, these aspirations often conflict with high paid work demands. For many fathers, paid work remains a central reference point for responsibility, security, and social recognition. Depending on their socio-economic context, this can limit the ability of fathers to be more involved. The distribution of care work and the establishment of functioning care arrangements are not only expressions of individual preferences; they are also embedded within a web of structural, normative and relational requirements. Consequently, the desire to be an involved father and take on unpaid care work for the family is not simply a matter of personal choice.

The following example illustrates this dilemma: a father wants to play a more active role in caring for his daughter, but his position as the family breadwinner makes this difficult to renegotiate. He explains:

Father: “What is always an issue for me, and a difficult one, is that I am self-employed. That simply means if I don’t work, I don’t earn money. […] There is pressure from all sides, and I find that extremely difficult.”

Even when working full-time, our data shows that fathers do take on childcare, often performing these tasks after their paid work. This pattern is particularly common in families that adopt more traditional care arrangements, with the father taking on full-time paid work and the mother taking on primary care responsibilities. One mother explains:

Mother: “He does a lot. Because he is working full time, but he wakes up really early to do a morning feeding with them. […] And when he comes home, no matter how tired he is, he really is hands-on with his children.”

In some cases, families anticipate these tensions before their child is born and make long-term decisions. For example, some fathers may reduce their working hours or accept a new role. These decisions demonstrate an active effort to incorporate caregiving into their lives, and are often accompanied by financial loss, professional uncertainty or changes to how they are recognised. One couple reflects on such a decision:

Mother: “You deliberately organised your career so that it would work with a family. You chose a job compatible with family life.”

Father: “Yes, exactly. That was important. This decision was a process for me. With my old job it would have been possible too, but it would have been a clear extra burden for a family.”

The various strategies families develop to balance paid work with care responsibilities also demonstrate how masculinity is negotiated within relationships. Fathers have their own ideas about what constitutes a 'good father', and that these notions are closely linked to their caregiving responsibilities. They actively negotiate with their partners how unpaid care work should be divided. However, fathers face contradictory societal expectations to be fully present in family life while also ensuring economic security. This creates tensions between their caregiving ideals and professional obligations. When fathers take on primary care responsibility, they do not automatically receive recognition or understanding from all of society or their wider social networks. One father who takes on most of the care work for his family comments:

Father: “It would be nice to receive some acknowledgement. It’s something you always hope for as a father: recognition that there are men who are at home too.”

Relational Masculinities in Care: Conclusions and Outlook

All the examples presented thus far demonstrate that fathers express diverse forms of caring masculinities. These range from those who actively share daily caregiving tasks, to those who primarily step in during the evenings or at weekends, to those who negotiate highly flexible arrangements with their partners. These examples show that masculinities are formed in care contexts through diverse relational processes of negotiation and recognition and cannot be understood in isolation. This supports Connell's view that masculinities are social practices produced, negotiated and contested within specific contexts. The ambivalences evident in the current data—relating to responsibility, time pressures, recognition and relational demands—highlight the complexity of these processes. Further data, such as relating to queer fathers, is expected to reveal additional facets of how fathers engage in care and how these practices are negotiated.

Overall, the examples demonstrate that, like mothers, fathers balance multiple demands. However, this similarity should not distract from the ongoing power imbalances that shape these negotiations. Mothers continue to carry out a disproportionate amount of care work, often at a greater personal and professional cost. This is a reflection of the broader patriarchal, socioeconomic and institutional structures that determine what is recognised, rewarded and expected within families. Focusin on caring masculinities does not challenge this reality; rather, it reveals that men’s engagement in care is itself constrained and contested, and is embedded in the same structural and normative conditions that disadvantage women. Understanding these dynamics from multiple angles is essential for grasping why change in the division of care work is slow and difficult to achieve. For most of the fathers in our study, becoming and being involved in care work is important and reflects a key normative orientation. Nevertheless, it remains an ongoing process, shaped by everyday family life and the realities of the current working landscape, and it is precisely in these everyday negotiations that caring masculinities are formed.

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