How Fatherhood Affects Men's Ideas On Gender Roles

Men, who become fathers for the first time, grow increasingly more sexist and conservative about the roles women have in the home, according to a new study published on Child and Family Blog.

Australian expert Janeen Baxter conducted her research among 1,800 new parents. They were asked to rate statements concerning housework, children, motherhood and home life from one to seven, with one being the strongest at which they would agree and seven being the strongest at which they would disagree.

The results revealed that after the birth of the first-born child, gender role ideas shifted in both men and women. However, while both genders do not generally subscribe to the idea that housework and childcare should be an equal task between the husband and wife, it's the men who disagreed with most of the statements.

The mean level of disagreement among the women falls from 1.6 to 1.8 while it's from 2.1 to 2.3 for the men, according to the Independent.

"New fathers became more consistently traditional in their views on gender roles. They were less likely than before to agree that men and women in dual-earner couples should share housework and childcare equally. They were more likely to agree that a working mother is less able than a stay-at-home mother to establish a bond with her child," wrote Baxter in her study.

The survey also showed that mothers become slightly more conflicted about their roles between becoming a stay-at-home or working mother. But with the women, the research saw a four percent increase in the idea that being a working mother can also be an effective parent, while the men were only 0.1 percent in agreement of the idea, the Independent further reported.

However, these shifts are more biological in nature. The sociologist explained that the same concepts don't take place in other societies where shared responsibilities between parents are expected.

So, where does the problem lie? It's in the way parents assign roles and responsibilities. "It seems more likely that the way we organize work, parental leave arrangements, public services for children, schools and social networks create structural barriers to involved fatherhood and also encourage the traditional social construction of women's mothering role," Baxter wrote in her study.

She suggests parents resist following the pattern. "Whether you are male or female, you have to be very confident and persistent against overwhelming odds not to conform amid such powerful messaging," she said.

The expert  also suggests putting more focus in programs—from the government and from employers—that will help parents better develop "work-parenting arrangements," as reported by Mail Online.