Präsentation bei der Schlusskonferenz von FamiliesAndSocieties, Brüssel, 17/10/2016

Neue Artikel (*SSCI)

*Vogl Susanne, Zartler Ulrike, Schmidt Eva-Maria (2017): Developing an Analytical Framework for Multiple-Perspective, Qualitative Longitudinal Interviews (MPQLI). International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Forthcoming.

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Schmidt Eva-Maria (2017). Breadwinning as care? The meaning of paid work in mothers’ and fathers’ constructions of parenting. Community, Work and Family. Online first.

Abstract:

As some scholars have argued for a distinct conceptualisation of breadwinning and for understanding breadwinning as a form of care, this study addresses parents’ constructions of breadwinning and its connections to care. It is based on an in-depth interpretive analysis of multiple-perspective, qualitative longitudinal interviews with 22 Austrian mothers and fathers from three points in time during their transition to parenthood. The analysis revealed four different types of breadwinning concepts by considering the jointly constructed meaning of mothers’ and fathers’ paid work within a parental couple and further relied on Tronto’s conceptualisation of care as a four-step process. The results indicate that respondents construct a clear difference between earning money and breadwinning. Additionally, a difference is made between breadwinning and taking care of the family’s subsistence, predominantly so for mothers. In conclusion, breadwinning can definitely be considered a form of care and thus a form of involvement in parenting, but it cannot be regarded a form of involvement in caregiving. The holistic picture of parents’ joint constructions enabled us to contribute to the existing conceptualisations of breadwinning and of parental involvement, thus providing a novel perspective on matters of gender equality.

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*Schmidt Eva-Maria, Rieder Irene (2016). Alles eine Frage des Geldes? Elterliche Legitimierungsmuster bei der Organisation und Verwirklichung der Karenzzeit. SWS-Rundschau 4/2016.

Abstract:

Der Übergang zur Elternschaft zieht bis heute eine ungleiche und geschlechtsspezifische Aufteilung von bezahlter Arbeit und Kinderbetreuungsarbeit nach sich. Die Erwerbsunterbrechung von Eltern und der damit einhergehende Einkommensverlust werden in Österreich von staatlicher Seite finanziell unterstützt, wobei Eltern vielfältige Möglichkeiten der Nutzung von Kinderbetreuungsgeld (KBG) und Elternkarenz haben. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, wie Mütter und Väter vor und nach der Geburt ihres ersten Kindes die Organisation ihrer Karenzzeit legitimieren; unabhängig davon, ob und wie sie diese aufteilen. Auf Basis einer qualitativen Längsschnittstudie (66 Interviews mit Müttern und Vätern zu drei Zeitpunkten) werden vier zentrale Legitimierungen identifiziert: ökonomische, erwerbszentrierte, kindzentrierte und rollenspezifische Legitimierungen. Die daraus resultierenden Legitimierungsmuster und die geschlechtsspezifischen Differenzierungen zeigen die Wirkmächtigkeit sozialer Normen auf.

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*Schadler Cornelia, Schmidt Eva-Maria, Rieder Irene, Zartler Ulrike, Richter Rudolf (accepted 2016). Key practices of equality within long parental leaves. Journal of European Social Policy 27(3).

Abstract:

The birth of a child often reinforces an unequal division of employment and care work among heterosexual couples. Parental leave programmes that foster long leaves tend to increase this inequality within couples. However, by investigating a particularly long parental leave system, we show that specific practices enable parents to share care work equally. Our ethnographic study includes interviews with heterosexual couples, observations in prenatal classes and information material available to parents. Specific sets of practices – managing economic security, negotiating employment, sharing information with peers and feeding practices – included parents that shared care work equally and parents that divided care work unequally. Contingent on specific situated practices, the arrangement of care work shifted in an equal or unequal direction. Even within long parental leaves, equality between parents was facilitated when economic security was provided through means other than income, when work hours were flexible, mothers had a close relationship to work, information on sharing equally was available and children were bottle-fed. Consequently, the relations between the human and non-human participants of situated practices come into focus. An equal share of care work is not the effect of solely structural, individual, cultural or normative matters, but of their entanglement in practices.

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Schmidt Eva-Maria, Rieder Irene, Zartler Ulrike, Schadler Cornelia, Richter Rudolf (2015). Parental Constructions of Masculinity at the Transition to Parenthood: The Division of Parental Leave among Austrian Couples. International Review of Sociology 25(3).

Abstract:

Men and masculinity are considered a key factor in changing gender inequality at the transition to parenthood. Prior research on gendered division of parental leave concentrated on fathers’ perspectives. This paper includes perspectives of fathers and mothers who make use of parental leave in different ways and asks how masculinity is jointly constructed, how these constructions are linked to the use of parental leave, and if and how they are oriented towards hegemonic masculinity. The analysis is based on 44 qualitative interviews with 11 Austrian couples before and after birth when decisions concerning parental leave were made. Our case reconstructions reveal that parents considered parental leave a central element of masculinity as long as it suited fathers’ needs and circumstances permitted. The decisions for sharing parental leave were fathercentred as both partners valued father’s leave higher than mother’s.

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Schadler, Cornelia (2014): Key practices of the transition to parenthood: The everyday figuration of parents' and children's bodies and personalities through the lens of a new materialist ethnography. Current Sociology, 61/1, 114-131

Abstract:

At the transition to parenthood humans become parents or children. Sociology traditionally defines the transition to parenthood as the attainment of a new role or a new cultural identity. Recent new materialist redefinitions of the human and human relations have consequences for the empirical and conceptual view on the transition to parenthood. Parents and children become figurations within material-cultural practices. Their bodies and personalities solidify in those processes. Research from this perspective has often focused on the conception and birth of children (and parents) within techno-scientific practices (e.g. IVF). The research presented here focuses on everyday material-cultural practices during the transition to parenthood to explicate how parents and children are produced during the transition to parenthood. This article gives detailed descriptions of four key practices that allow humans to gain the status of parent or child: gaining evidence over an existing pregnancy, the normalization of the foetus and the parents, the sexing of the child and the official registration of the child. These situated practices form ‘real’ parents and children and their living conditions.

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