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The paper derives from a comparative research about Work-Care balance, “Workcare” conducted in seven European countries (United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Denmark) under European Framework Programme 6.
In particular, it utilises a body of 110 in-depth interviews (a substantial part of which addressed to both partners of a couple) - collected from parents of 5 to12 children - to illustrate how persistent cultural differences are in the construction of both what “work”, on the one side and “appropriate care”, on the other one, is meant to be in the mix between family or informal and market or public resources.
If we want to take seriously the idea that contemporary well-being in an Adult Worker dual earner/dual carer society depends more on re-conciliating work requests and care burdens of both parents, the history of how the exigencies of two different careers and the decisions about childbirths have been managed in time becomes crucial, revealing what is taken for granted in different countries and therefore constitutes the background of the division of domestic work. These indications top up almost spontaneously in the rich narratives we collected and underline how different may be what is considered a high quality family life, a fair division of unpaid work and an acceptable work-life balance in dual earner (or one-and half) couples with children who already experienced non-family childcare. On the other hand, all this may be compared with the result of more traditional tools measuring the division of labour (forms filled and drawings), something we also proposed to our respondents. Anyway, it emerges clearly how important it is to have care work duties publicly recognized, also in terms of a right to enjoy childcare, which is of paramount importance in moving towards gender equity, also in "new fathers" families.