What Roles for French Fathers in Different Familial Arrangements?

What roles for French fathers in different familial arrangements?

F. Berton, M.C. Bureau & B. Rist

LISE (CNRS/CNAM) Paris

 

Over the last few decades, family arrangements have become more diverse in France: mono-parental, same-sex, migrant, bicultural and step families. This new context redefines the roles of fathers within the family and outside, in relation to work and social and care institutions.

 

Within the framework of a research project about parenthood (with the financial support of the French National Family Benefits Fund), we used data from the French longitudinal studies of children (more than 18 000 children born in 2011) and we interviewed 60 families of different types: large, with step-mothers and step-fathers, migrant or bi-cultural and same-sex families. We chose families with a new born baby because birth situations put at stake family roles and the links between families and institutions are reinforced at children’s birth.

 

According to our first results, the major differences between the family types involve the form of parenthood: more or less reflective, authoritarian or negotiated relationships, more or less linked to gender.

The communication explores different ways of being a father, in relation to family structures, from two perspectives:

-          How do fathers contribute (and want to contribute) to children’s care and education?

-          What do mothers expect from fathers?

 

Key words: fatherhood; families; institutions; France